复仇战姬 Revenge-第02集

影迷热议

• 来自网友【他他】的评论Title: RevengeYear: 2017Genre: Thriller, Horror, ActionCountry: France, BelgiumLanguage: English, FrenchDirector/Screenwriter: Coralie FargeatMusic: Robin CoudertCinematography: Robrecht HeyvaertEditor: Jerome EltabetCast:Matilda LutzKevin JanssensVincent ColombeGuillaume Bouchède Rating: 6.7/10Title: The SubstanceYear: 2024Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi, DramaCountry: UK, France, USALanguage: EnglishDirector/Screenwriter: Coralie FargeatMusic: RaffertieCinematography: Benjamin KracunEditors: Jerome Eltabet, Coralie Fargeat, Valentin Féron Cast:Demi MooreMargaret QualleyDennis QuaidGore AbramsEdward Hamilton-ClarkOscar LesageChristian EricksonRobin GreerHugo Diego GarcíaTom MortonAkil WingateRating: 8.0/10Body horror is largely relegated as a genre that mostly cashes on sensational shock value and queasy discomfiture to hook and engage its audience, often crudely wrought, exploitively designed and conceptually derivative. So here are the bracing tidings: French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat has almost single-handedly altered the genre’s bad rep and her second feature THE SUBSTANCE is currently in contention to be a major player in the forthcoming Oscar race. Fargeat's debut feature REVENGE, like its name, is a no-frills rape-and-reprisal thriller. It pits a bikini-clad babe against 3 lecherous men, including her lover, after subjecting to a fate worse than death and summarily pushed off a cliff. If the premise sounds trite and unremarkable, Fargeat’s specialties are in the details, especially on those somatic wounds and traumas, plus a bodacious style of execution.The heroine Jen (Lutz) is impaled by a tree branch, so it is critical to show how she can survive that dire situation and cauterizes the horrific wound, where a hallucinogenic drug made of peyote is just handy for her to use as an anesthetic. The whole procedure is under close scrutiny with convincing practical effects and Jen literally represents a phoenix rising from the ashes before striking out to take her vengeance. Since we are safe in the knowledge that our the avenge angel will have the last laugh, neither distress nor suspense is able to materialize as a gun-toting Jen exacts her ire on, first, her rapist Stan (Colombe) and then, the final showdown with her coldblooded lover Richard (Janssens). Also, after Jen's reborn, Fargeat reverts the film's tantalizing male gaze of the beginning, with a buff Janssens running naked in the make-or-break climax whereas Jen is kit out to do some serious murder. Notably, putting no words into Jen's mouth after her ordeal points up Fargeat's crusade on masculine evilness (no breath should be wasted on the flagrant vileness), only Lutz doesn't have enough animus in her to uphold the credo, she always looks a tad nonplussed, which does take the shine off the film’s effectiveness. Again, an ear being shot off, a foot lacerated by a shard of glass, a stomach inflicted by a shotgun bullet, those visceral wounds are graphically and protractedly displayed, intentionally evoke a viewer's wince-prompting reactions but also serve as a process of desensitization. For what it is worth, Fargeat announces herself as an undeniable apostle of Cronenberg, her proclivity of gore-fest, hallucinating effect, prosthetic grotesqueries, reductive storyline and sets will all find a bigger and much impressive tapestry to enact in THE SUBSTANCE. A modern-day gender-switched Dorian Gray iteration about an aging Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), who, via a magic substance, is able to share her life with a younger version of herself. By turns, each lives for one week while the other lies unconsciously, sustained by liquid nutrition. One cardinal rule is that every seven days, they must change, no exception, by which her nubile, supple, pneumatic, twenty-something alter ego Sue (Qualley) fails to abide. Sue is successfully selected as the successor of Elisabeth by her producer Harvey (Quaid, maxing out to lampoon the vulgarity of City of Angels), and abandons herself to her newfound fame and popularity. Not punctual in the timing, she frequently overstays her 7-day time quota and earns the extra time by extracting the balancing fluid out of Elisabeth’s body, which causes the latter’s body to decay rapidly, whose confidence is soon to be destroyed and becomes a shut-in. As the imbalance compounds (Sue vapidly takes liberty with her time and not heeds the No. 1 precept:“they are one person”), Elisabeth eventually transmogrifies into a gollum-like creep (an uncanny Glenn Close lookalike under a drastic makeup) after losing most of her balancing fluid. So when Elisabeth finally have had it and resolves to terminate the experiment, a moment of softened heart leads to an inexplicable occurrence where both Elisabeth and Sue in their conscious states, face to face for the first time and a bloody cat fight ensues as an irate Sue mercilessly beats Elisabeth to death. A brutalizing plot development that allows Fargeat to unleash the ultimate monster: a hideous humanoid chimera with both Elisabeth and Sue embedded in it (its grossness is a nod to Cronenberg’s THE FLY, 1986). This monstrosity’s rebuttal to a society’s immanent sexism and agism is a non-lethally blood-splattered pandemonium that takes its leaf from De Palma’s CARRIE (1976), with more fake blood for good measure. Finally, returning to her star on the Hollywood walk of fame in the form of a blob, Elisabeth, and by extension the film itself, nicely reaches the ouroboros. In this way, THE SUBSTANCE comes off more as a satirical, tub-thumping critique on a troubling societal canker than a conventional scare-easy, thrills-and-chills ride. Moore manifests a never-seen-before intensity in Elisabeth’s bone-deep insecurity of aging and love-wanting, let alone the backbreaking ordeal of kitting out with the hellacious costumes and makeup wizardry. It is a role she has been waiting for and her comeback story is all too inspiring to be dismissed by the genre prejudice. Qualley also sticks out the ordeal spectacularly, very much capable of transforming Sue’s ingénue sultriness to a chilling callousness that counterpoints Elisabeth’s tentativeness. Here since Fargeat’s script accords dual consciousness to Elisabeth-Sue dyad albeit asserting they are one person, which means, both can think independently, their respective actions during their waking days are unshared by their asleep counterparts. (Smartly, Fargeat weeds off any extraneous threads to keep her plot lean and concentrated, for instance, there is no explication about the substance, its effect is explicitly demonstrated in the masterful opening scenes) Thus, the story seems to suggest their symbiosis is also a metaphor for a deleterious mother-daughter bond. A mother pins her unfulfilled hopes on her daughter, which sadly backfires when the latter trying to get out of her clutches, run away with a matricidal rage and rebellion. In THE SUBSTANCE, Fargeat wields her feminist sword not towards the opposite sex as in REVENGE, but towards the woman herself. Elisabeth is woefully brainwashed by the indoctrinations of a society controlled by patriarchy and masscult, about the beauty and age standards. By showing Elisabeth’s tragedy, who is miserably too clingy to fame and other people’s appreciation, she is even willing to die for it, the film urges a woman to appraise her worth on her own terms. As far as women directors are concerned, Fargeat is whip-smart not to antagonize or accuse the opposite sex while staking her progressive claim, the truth is rather simple: a woman’s infighting has nothing to do with men, she can clean her own mess, in one way or another, however gory it is.referential entries: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s READY OR NOT (2019, 6.9/10); David Cronenberg’s THE FLY (1986, 8.1/10); Julia Ducournau's TITANE (2021, 7.5/10).