Jen flies to a remote desert villa with her married boyfriend. When his hunting friends arrive, one of them assaults her, and the men leave her for dead. She survives and hunts them down. For filmmakers, it shows how four characters and one stylized place can carry a blood-soaked thriller.
Revenge is a 2017 thriller, action and horror film directed by Coralie Fargeat. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 psychology, 1 cinematography and 1 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Sabrina uses several of the same techniques.
Showing the human body being changed, damaged or falling apart. The horror works because you imagine it happening to your own body, and it often stands for mental suffering.
How this film uses it
Jen is impaled on a branch and must free herself. Later she seals her wound with a heated beer can, which leaves a phoenix-shaped scar. You feel each injury as if it were your own.
Where to see it
The branch and the beer can: Jen frees herself from the branch, then cauterizes her wound with a heated beer can.
Treating a desert or vast landscape as a main character with as much screen time as the actors. It has its own arc and can dwarf, kill and transform the people in it.
How this film uses it
Fargeat chose Morocco because it offered a villa, desert and water together, in a desert you could not place. A nearby village was left out of frame to make the characters seem alone. The land is vast and open, with nowhere to hide.
Where to see it
Escape into the desert: Jen runs from the villa and Richard pushes her off a cliff.
Taking a character to the opposite of where they started, such as from weak to strong or from decent to compromised. That reversal is what the film is about.
How this film uses it
Jen begins as a young woman who dances at a party. She ends as a hunter who takes a shotgun, ambushes a man at the SUV and finishes the fight. The film is that reversal.
Where to see it
Final chase: Jen shoots Richard, and they chase each other through the blood-covered house. She kills him and walks out as the helicopter approaches.
Paying attention to who is looking, who is being looked at and whose eyes the camera borrows. Looking becomes a form of power in the story.
How this film uses it
Early scenes make you notice who is watching Jen and how. She dances for the group, and the men look at her. Later the camera lets her look back, and the power changes sides.
Where to see it
Night party: Jen dances, then dances with Stan. Later, Stan assaults her while Dimitri watches and does nothing.
Questions
Revenge: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Revenge use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Revenge (2017): Body Horror, Desert as Protagonist, Character Arc Inversion and The Gaze.
Who directed Revenge?
Coralie Fargeat directed Revenge, released in 2017. CineCode also covers The Substance (2024).
What films are similar to Revenge?
Films that share techniques with Revenge include Sabrina (1954), Get Out (2017), Black Swan (2010), The Godfather (1972).
