3/2/2020 - Revenge (2017) - 6+/7-/10

A stylish thriller that soars on the wings of Panos Cosmatos, Nicholas Wending Reffin, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s (Let the Corpses Tan and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears) wings - the modern mixture of american brazenness, European refined hyper-style, and pseudo-exploitation & 70s/80s nostalgia provides the foundationitive base for damn cool and slick films. This is a dust covered neon gunshot to that new pseudo-genre that is easy to please. It may not be perfect, but it is pleasurable.

Realistic in only a movie way, but it still pushes those fun buttons. The gratuitous sexiness mixed with the harshly gross violence is a witches brew for excitement, stomach churning though it might be. But it is effective in its evocations, which are dolled up with the eccentricities of thematic closeups, vibrant colors, slow motion and engaging camera movement/placement. It is as engaging as it is provocative, one copulating with the other.

I loved the flourishes of tones and spirit, from the ant dancing over the slowly decaying apple, the groggy hypnotism of a dancing beauty in the night, or the grossly slow crunching of candy juxtaposed with sexual violence - this film oozes panache, which tickled my cinematic sensibilities. I also like the ridiculous finale, a blend of Peckinpaw and Tarantino by way of Benny Hill. It’s not for everyone, but it brought some levity to cut the tension of a life & death chase, while giving us something unique in the history of film. Which is a metaphor for the film in totality; enticing but possibly off-putting leading to a culty sensibility.