Violation

This year the official selection of the SXSW festival will have allowed us to discover comedies, dramas, documentaries but also horrific thrillers. Enough to satisfy the expectation of the spectators who have to be satisfied with the streaming channels (Disney + , Apple TV+, Prime Video and Netflix) to satisfy their dose of adrenaline and discovery of new films. Violation was released after the SXSW festival on Shudder, the American subscription video-on-demand service offering horror, thriller and supernatural fiction titles. After numerous short films, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli went on to direct a feature film with Violation and also wrote the script.

With her marriage on the verge of imploding, Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) returns to her hometown to seek comfort from her younger sister and brother-in-law. But one night, a small error in judgment leads to a catastrophic betrayal, leaving Miriam shocked, upset and angry. Believing that her only recourse is revenge, Miriam takes extreme measures, but the price of revenge is high and she is unprepared for the ordeal she faces when she begins to break down emotionally and psychologically.

It is interesting to see that for their first film, directors and writers Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli do not choose a classic path to tell their story and to create a real disturbing atmosphere and conducive to violent outbursts. On the contrary, the skilfully constructed script allows us to better understand the real psychology of the characters and to better understand the important elements of this story of revenge. The film intelligently questions how fantasies of retaliation can come to the surface in the face of victims who have been abused. We will never say that violence is the ultimate response, but in some cases, we can only understand it even if we do not always validate the form that revenge should take.

Violation also marks our memories by its cold analysis of the revenge film through the female gaze of a woman on the brink who feels compelled to resort to violence to exorcise her own demons. Certainly the introduction scene would have deserved to be quite different and at times the rhythm seems a bit off, but this is only to better deceive the spectators and offer them a striking story of rare violence.

Violation constantly surprises not only by the quality of its interpretation but especially by its inspired direction and its willingness to think outside the box to give power back to women. In a society where too many women are mistreated, such a film is not only exemplary but above all leads us to question ourselves on what we would do if it happened to us.

Violation
Written and directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
Produced by Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
Executive Producer: Deepa Mehta, David Hamilton, François Dagenais, Matthew Nayman, David James
Starring Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse LaVercombe, Obi Abili, Jasmin Geljo, Cynthia Ashperger
Music by Andrea Boccadoro , Rebecca Yeboah
Production Designer: Joshua Turpin
Sound: Matthew Chan
Cinematography: Adam Crosby
Edited by Gabriella Wallace
Release date : March 18 2021 (SXSW), March 25, 2021 (USA)
Running time : 107 minutes

Seen on March 20, 2021 (SXSW)

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