TIFF 2020 Film Review: Violation
Violation Upends the Rape-Revenge Genre with Twisted and Ambiguous Heft
One of only three titles in TIFF’s Midnight Madness slate this year, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s Violation is a haunting and disturbing deconstruction of the rape-revenge genre. Exacting to watch and remarkably complex, the film eschews formula and withholds catharsis to chilling effect, delivering a horror experience that is as harrowing as it is challenging. Minor spoilers ahead…
From the exploitative schlock of I Spit on Your Grave to the measured historical reckoning of The Nightingale, the rape-revenge story is one that typically sticks to a certain formula: An ordeal of horrific sexual violence begets the thrill of vicarious empowerment, ending with the victim - usually a woman - taking satisfying and bloody vengeance upon her rapists. In recent years, the genre has experienced a shift; the scales have tipped away from the feckless exploitation of video nasties to give more weight to catharsis and feminist messaging. Instead of films like The Last House on the Left or Baisé-moi, which almost revel in their salaciousness, rape-revenge movies have evolved into women-helmed thrillers such as Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge or Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, which significantly tone down the problematic titillation of sexual violence to instead focus on deliverance and Old Testament eye-for-an-eye. Now, directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli have crafted Violation, a new iteration of the rape-revenge film that upends our conceptions of the genre even further. With its nonlinear narrative, baroque soundscapes, and unflinching bloodletting, Violation challenges the very ideas of guilt, vengeance, and human nature.
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With its nonlinear narrative, baroque soundscapes, and unflinching bloodletting, Violation challenges the very ideas of guilt, vengeance, and human nature.”
Madeleine Sims-Fewer - pulling double duty as co-director and lead - portrays Miriam, a woman attempting to bail the water out of her sinking marriage by taking a weekend getaway to the secluded Quebecois cottage of her estranged sister, Greta (Anna Maguire). However, rather than finding calm alongside their respective husbands, Caleb (Obi Abili) and Dylan (Jesse LaVercombe), the sisters begin picking at old wounds from their rocky history. It’s a tension-filled reunion that sets off a chain reaction of explosive conflicts and shocking betrayals, ultimately resulting in a disturbing act of sexual assault. Violation is confrontational cinema at its most harrowing, with Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli utilizing nonlinear storytelling to devastating effect. While initially a little jarring, the film’s jumps in time juggle crime, punishment, and audience emotion in a razor-sharp balancing act. By portraying the gruesome act of revenge before the eponymous transgression, Violation muddies the waters of intent: Is Miriam ridding the world of a monster? Or is she just blinded by her white-hot rage? In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli shed some light on their film: “We really wanted to make a revenge film that pushed the boundaries of the genre, challenging the tropes of the half-naked woman becoming empowered by violent revenge against a menacing stranger, and that revenge is the cathartic climax we are all seeking at the end of the movie.”
While the film is supremely adept at mining pathos out of betrayal and broken relationships, at its core, Violation remains centered on horror. With stark symbolism and a soundtrack filled with the Rococo strings of Giovanni Pergolesi, the work evokes the uncomfortable cinema of Park Chan-wook and Lars von Trier, building up a crescendo of terrible atmosphere and relentless dread. The actual act of revenge is the film at its most uncompromising. Meticulous, messy, and bloody, Miriam’s retribution is unwaveringly brutal: Cracked skulls, gory dismemberment, and faucets of blood are all on full display from a camera that never shies away. And it would be one thing if Violation stopped there - Miriam is not only intent on exacting her bloody revenge, but also looking to completely erase all traces of her attacker’s existence after the deed is done. Sims-Fewer is excellent in portraying her character’s anguish as she goes into clean-up mode, conveying the exacting psychological toll of murder’s rigmarole.
Violation jettisons the playbook of the rape-revenge subgenre. Existing outside the confines of fantasy and cathartic wish-fulfillment, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli construct a narrative that defies convention, filling it with compromised characters and complex motivations. Where other rape-revenge protagonists find their terminals in a state of reclaimed power, Miriam finds hers in melancholic ambiguity. A film that is all about the crossing of lines and how easily those lines can be blurred, there are no easy answers in Violation, and that’s what makes it so powerful.
