In my introductory Through Her Eyes column, I grappled with the rape-revenge genre and looked at how these films can be reclaimed as narratives about feminine power. Now, I want to delve into a specific example of a new kind of rape-revenge film, ones directed by women that work to create narratives about feminine power from the start.

Perhaps the most prominent example is Coralie Fargeat’s 2018 film, Revenge, a movie about power found in a bodily transformation in reverse, while also speaking to the need for a more nuanced portrayal of sexuality. I believe Revenge adopts what I’m calling a transformational gaze— a gaze that actively questions the spectator’s position and makes them an active participant in protagonist Jen’s objectification, rape, attempted murder, and eventual transformation—to convey Fargeat’s goal of changing how the female body is perceived and taking control of an already controlling gaze.

This transformational gaze actively interrogates the viewer’s position and forces them to rethink how they are viewing the female body as Jen’s own body transforms throughout the narrative. Fargeat accomplishes this by taking control of the spectator through the use of the camera and showing them how they are seeing Jen’s body. At times this can seem to be subjecting Jen to the male gaze, but it is in attempts to guide the spectator through a journey that makes them see the body differently. Only by utilizing the typical controlling male gaze of rape-revenge films is Fargeat able to try to take control of this type of narrative. Importantly, these quick cuts and closeups of the body are utilized later in the film when her ruined body is revealed. Fargeat begins with a predatory male gaze to set expectations of how the female body should be viewed and then subverts that expectation as Jen’s body undergoes a violent transformation.

The first stage of Revenge’s transformational gaze aligns the spectator with the sinister and consuming male gaze of Jen’s boyfriend and his friends. This predatory gaze is often seen in rape-revenge films, but it is attributed to strange men who have no relationship with the female protagonist. In Revenge, however, this threat is much closer as the gaze is attributed to her lover and acquaintances, people she presumably trusts, portraying a much more threatening reality unfolding in the vacation home. From its opening scenes, Revenge is aware of its gaze and intentional with its camera movement, utilizing techniques typically associated with the male gaze, such as viewing the female body in parts through closeup, to construct a sinister gaze that views the female body as site/sight of sexual spectacle.

The predatory gaze is first introduced as the film introduces the protagonist Jen (Matilda Lutz). When Jen’s full body is revealed, she is sucking on a lollipop and is clad in a short hot pink skirt that accentuates her long tan legs, to say nothing of how these shades of pink highlight her long blonde hair. In this short sequence, it becomes obvious that Jen is viewed in sections, with the camera focusing on the parts it deems the most sexual; in this case, her legs and lips. Jen is set up as a sexual character, ticking all the boxes of the stereotypical hyper-feminine figure before she has even said a line of dialogue. Fargeat specifically curates the idea of the “to-be-looked-at-ness” of Jen’s body through the quick cutting camera. However, instead of trying to eliminate the artifice of the apparatus and editing techniques, Fargeat makes sure to draw attention to their presence, purposefully drawing attention to how the female body is consumed.

The predatory male gaze then shifts around Jen’s rape, which is barely shown; instead, the camera focuses on the complicit man who allows the rape to occur. Instead of happening on the forest floor like in both versions of I Spit On Your Grave, Jen is assaulted in her bedroom, which constructs a further sense of violation and personal link to her assault as an intimate space is invaded. The camera views the bedroom in a long shot, showing a naked Jen getting dressed. There is no torture and egregious humiliation at the hands of a group of strangers, like what’s seen in I Spit On Your Grave. Rather it is a cold, tense conversation where a friend of Jen’s boyfriend, Stan (Vincent Colombe), demands answers and action from Jen, who is trapped in a corner, both literally and figuratively. As the conversation escalates, both stand up from the bed, and Jen tries to escape. But instead, Stan slams Jen against the glass door and begins to take what he believes is his. As he begins to take off his pants to rape Jen, the camera moves into closeup, focusing on Jen’s crotch. But now, instead of it being a moment of fantasy, it is a moment of perverse action, where the male gaze is now being implemented into violent action. However, the assault, and realization of fantasy, is delayed as another friend Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) enters the room.

This is where the sequence shifts from sexualizing Jen’s body to making the male body grotesque. As Dimitri stares at the scene in front of him, the camera moves to a closeup of his mouth, slowly chewing chocolate and marshmallow, a nauseating mash of sugar that grinds underneath his teeth. Aside from the quite literal metaphor about consumption, his body is presented in a similar way to Jen not to sexualize him, but to make his body grotesque. If the spectator is to revel in closeups of perfect legs, stomachs, and breasts, then they must revel in closeups of the grotesque, too. As the camera cuts to a medium-long shot, the spectator is now aligned with Dimitri as he leaves the room and shuts the door behind him, sealing Jen’s fate.

This refusal to show more than a few seconds of her rape is Revenge’s most unique quality. The majority of rape-revenge films, including both versions of I Spit On Your Grave, spend agonizing minutes showing a woman’s torture and rape, reveling in the destruction of her screaming body. In these moments, the male gaze is most prevalent as the spectator is often invited to align their perspectives with the rapists, which can make them active participants in the woman’s rape. However, Fargeat moves away from the violent spectacle and instead has the spectator identify with the complicit man, who witnesses the beginning of the rape then leaves the room. The spectator is denied seeing the violation of Jen’s body and is instead made complicit to the act, rather than active, which changes the usual gaze utilized in these moments. The focus shifts from the sexualized female body to the grotesque male body, openly questioning the need to revel in a woman’s rape and torture to justify her eventual revenge; the spectator does not need to experience 20 or more minutes of rape to understand how violating it is to be raped.

Up until this point in Revenge, the spectator has been implicated in Jen’s objectification and assault. The camera works to align them primarily with the male characters as they take what they want from her. However, the spectator’s gaze is thrown into turmoil after her rape as they are introduced to her ruined body and are more aligned with her perspective; no longer is she the hyper-feminized lolita figure of the film’s beginning, but an abject body oozing blood. This is not to say that her body is ruined when she is raped. Rather, it is ruined when she is pushed off a cliff by Richard. Her body is impaled on a tree, a phallic branch penetrating her perfect stomach, as if she hasn’t been forcibly penetrated enough. She miraculously survives the fall and in attempts to care for her wounds, Jen performs self-surgery. She then brands herself with a beer can to cauterize the wound, leaving her stomach scarred and marked with the image of a giant eagle. Even though her body is in the process of transforming from the image of hypersexuality to the image of trauma, the camera does not let the spectator look away from her injuries, as if to say, “if you wanted to look at her when she was sexualized, you must look at her in this state, too.”

There seems to be a contradiction in my argument here as Jen’s transformed body is still undressed; wouldn’t it seem to be a sexualized body because it is not covered up? Fargeat addressed this in an interview, saying:

“From the beginning to the end, she’s in a way the same person; she just inhabits her body in a different way and uses it in a different way. I wanted her body to be the center of the story from the beginning to the end. That’s why it was also important for me that she doesn’t cover up in the second half. I didn’t want to convey the idea that she was going to be strong because she now has clothes on.“

Jen may be undressed, but it does not mean she is sexualized; this undressed body that is covered in dirt, and adorned in a tattered bra, shows a form of empowerment in the seemingly eroticized, or at least naked, body. The final reveal of her body solidifies this fact as the camera unapologetically shows every inch of her body, rather than the quick cuts seen in the beginning. It mimics the male gaze seen in the beginning of both versions of I Spit On Your Grave, but in the case of Revenge, her body is presented differently in terms of aesthetics. The camera slowly circles around her body while moving up, fully revealing this new version of her body. The spectator is shown every angle and inch of Jen’s “new” body, which bears no resemblance to her previous body except for her pink star earrings. This small reminder shows us that, even through the transformative rape-revenge process that typically renders the female protagonist into a totally different being, Jen holds onto a part of her past self, which illustrates that there is no need to completely let go of femininity to show power. As she begins to hunt her prey, we see through her eyes as she places binoculars to her face. This perspective, paired with the image of her transformed and quasi-weaponized body, shows that she is now in control. She is on her way to enact her revenge.

Fargeat does not see clothing as an item that connotes sexuality vs non-sexuality. An unclothed woman can still have agency and power without becoming a sex object; Revenge offers a more nuanced portrayal of sexual power that doesn’t just come from seducing men. Jen’s body is exposed, but instead of being beautiful and immaculate, her body is a reminder of her past sexuality and the new ruined body; her wounds are exposed, not hidden which is why this version of the abject body is so different from previous rape-revenge films. Her bright pink earrings serve as a reminder of her femininity; no matter what she experiences, these symbols of her past gleam underneath her blood-soaked hair. Her sexuality should not be viewed as shameful or something that needs to be erased. Instead, sexuality is wielded as a weapon.

While I have used the transformational gaze to discuss how the camera has the spectator view the female body in Revenge, this term could have a dual meaning when applied to the subgenre to describe how both the spectator and female protagonist transform while viewing these more recent rape-revenge films. These stages of Revenge’s transformational gaze exemplify how it is a film that functions within existing conventions to create something that reflects a more current cultural moment. In this era of #MeToo and #TimesUp, Revenge marks a shift in how women-directed horror films depict rape and revenge in a different light.

It is not only about spectacle anymore but also about confronting previous methods of exploitation; and more importantly, rewriting them for a more contemporary context.