Retina & Revenge

I don’t often go into direct comparisons when I lump films together (usually, it’s for the sake of relative brevity, especially when I have little to say about one of the the films involved (see as Rideshare and Wildling)), but these two serendipitously lent themselves to some direct comparisons.  Let’s talk about Retina and Revenge.

                                                                

These films have a decent amount in common: Both center on women fighting back against circumstances aligned against them; both are written and directed by a single person (Carlos Ferrer and Corale Fargeat, respectively); both were produced on smaller budgets (though I couldn’t find a definitive number for Revenge, Fargeat repeatedly refers to having strong budgetary constraints; meanwhile, Retina had a budget of about $200,000); and both rely on visual cues to get their full points across.  But it’s their differences that tell a lot about film production.

Retina‘s plot, in the words of the film’s official website (which were then cribbed for the IMDb page), is as follows: “A young woman participates in a medical study. After a series of nightmares and unusual side effects, the line between dreams and reality is blurred. She finds herself on the run from those involved, desperate to uncover the truth.”  Working with a pretty small budget and a tiny crew (allegedly only three members strong), Ferrer does an admirable job in getting his story across, considering the limitations he had to endure.  Indeed, Ferrer served as the film’s writer, director, DP, sound engineer, VFX artist, and one of the editors, and even composed the film’s music; meanwhile, star Lindsay Goranson did her own makeup.

Unfortunately, it’s not the limitations that necessarily hold the film back.  Though Goranson does a solid job as the beleaguered protagonist, the rest of the cast can’t keep pace with her, most either coming off as lumber yard denizens or members of Scenery-Chewers Anonymous.  Though the visual effects are pretty nice, especially some of the more subtle bits near the beginning, the camera work and editing don’t help to create much of a sense of surreality or suspense.  The pacing is fairly ponderous, and the color palette is as drab and uninteresting as possible, making the film come off as painfully dull at times.  All of this is exacerbated by a script that favors obvious and overcooked elements over anything unique or creative.

Similarly, Revenge doesn’t have the most original plot in the universe:  During a hunting outing enjoyed by three wealthy men, the mistress of one of them tags along and gets raped by another.  As she’s unwilling to keep quiet and just let things go, she’s left for dead in the desert, but she survives and seeks vengeance against the hunters.  Yup, it’s your basic rape revenge narrative, but the presentation makes all the difference in the world.

Unlike Retina, which features a good amount of dialogue between Goranson and other characters to move the story along, there is only sparse dialogue in Revenge, the overwhelming majority of it coming in the first act.  The rest of the film relies on the stunning visuals crafted by Fargeat and cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert.  Striking, vibrant colors attack the eyes, with a heavy emphasis on nigh-fluorescent oranges, harsh beiges, a smattering of neon pinks, and some cobalt-leaning teals.  Interesting transitions pepper the edit, which shows a tightness that verges on the extreme when compared with the overly-loose editing of Retina.  Fargeat’s camera is very active, sliding and darting along with the action.  Matilda Lutz’s nearly silent vengeance is shown in some extremely bloody circumstances, not unlike the New Wave of French Horror offerings Inside, High Tension, and Martyrs, which also fed off of some punchy and emotional imagery for their power.  The synth-heavy score not only hearkens back to the 70s rape revenge flicks this film emulates, but also 80s slasher classics, appropriate given Lutz’s comparatively small yet just as bloody rampage.

But it’s the messaging that really sets Revenge apart, not only from Retina, but a good portion of today’s horror scene.  The first act is dominated by the camera’s decidedly male gaze, Lutz’s body pored over like a lusty fratboy in a sex comedy, her backside (perhaps “derriere” would be more appropriate, given the film’s French origins?) getting more attention than anything else.  Said backside would still feature in the rest of the film, but no longer as an object of desire, but a symbol for what Lutz has become: an agent of avenging death.  After the male gaze-y-ness reaches its pinnacle in a rape scene (one that drips with the usual delusional “nice guy” bullshit of being teased and led along), the visual tables are turned, the offending men now objectified, mostly as prey, targets.  Lutz remains scantily clad, but this is more out of necessity (what with her being left in the desert with only the little she was wearing) and a warping of her seeming weakness.  The final confrontation has the last man standing being the naked one, a nice inversion of the usual tropes, all while a television shopping channel broadcasts some spokeswomen engaging in the very male-engineered sex-focused marketing that feeds into the rape culture depicted in the film (indeed, said final man even comments on his amazement that women “always” have to “put up a fight” and make things difficult).  The savageness of the action, the vividness of the visuals, and the starkness of the narrative allows the messaging to permeate the audience’s senses incredibly effectively, whereas Retina is left comparatively dangling in the wind with its dull visuals and poor pacing and editing.

In the end, Revenge struck me as an exceptional entry in the rape revenge subgenre, one that’s likely to influence a long list of filmmakers into the future.  I highly recommend it to pretty much everyone, particularly fans of rape revenge flicks and visually interesting horror in general.  Retina, meanwhile, ultimately fails in its task of providing an interesting narrative, visual or otherwise, and is held back by it’s crew’s limitations.  I wouldn’t recommend it to many, save those looking for a psychological thriller that flies under the radar.