SXSW 2021: Violation
“Revenge is never a straight line. It's a forest, and like a forest it's easy to lose your way, to get lost, to forget where you came in.” —That line from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill rings as true for that movie as it does for the film Violation, directed and written by the duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. Each are female-driven revenge films of different veins. Kill Bill understands that the path to revenge is a tricky one, taking its female lead through hell, yet Tarantino’s action opus still manages to satisfy its audience with big sweeping theatrics and catharsis for its characters and the audience. Violation, meanwhile, is firmly placed in a dark reality. This isn’t a glossy, slick revenge film—no disrespect to the likes of Revenge and Promising Young Woman, each using its visuals to heighten their respect stories. There are no rousing moments, instead we see somber dread. The acts done by Violation’s female lead in the are almost as traumatic as the initial act of violation itself, and the quest to find some sort of catharsis is a long painful process—this is the film’s greatest strength, it never strays from the real horror at either end of the spectrum.
Told in fragments, jumping back and forth in time with dizzying visuals and chilling music throughout, we follow Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) as she struggles with her relationships with her husband Caleb (Obi Abili), her sister Greta (Anna Maguire), and Greta’s husband Dylan (Jesse LaVercombe). Most of the film takes place at a lakeside cabin, first as the two couples spend a weekend together, and later, once the events unfold, the cabin becomes the epicenter for Miriam’s revenge plot. We’re not sure exactly where we are in time at the start of the film. The kaleidoscopic timeline captures the mindset of Miriam, whose mental grasp on reality slips as the film progresses. When her sister Greta gets increasingly frustrated with her we don’t know why at first, and there’s some family history that remains unspoken. There’s a brilliance in how the film slowly reveals itself as we slowly find out there’s a specific event that sets off Greta, which she blames Miriam for. Their relationship is the emotional tether that holds the film together; we find out soon enough that Miriam cares for her sister and will go to any length to protect her.
There is a rape scene in Violation, it should be noted. It’s painful to sit through yet not fully exploitational. It manages to get under your skin, sparking the path to revenge that Miriam goes on, without being truly graphic. What is graphic is the violence in reaction to the rape. Yes, Miriam takes it upon herself to right a wrong, and the film makes it pretty clear that the person at the receiving end of the wrath deserves punishment. But killing someone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The film takes its time with the murder. Miriam comes up with a plan, down to pretty much every little detail, but of course, things go wrong right out the gate. Sims-Fewer gives an incredible performance in these scenes—serving as co-director, co-writer, and lead, she puts her all in Violation. She sells every stomach-churning action Miriam has to endure in the taking of a life and the clean up afterward. One of the most shocking moments in the film has Miriam draining buckets of blood from a human body; graphic in its simplicity, her visceral reaction feels all too real.
Violation takes us into the shattered mind of Miriam, and we empathize with her through every harrowing step on her path to revenge. With every primal scream and cry we hear from her, we understand her rage—the film benefits from a female perspective like Sims-Fewer’s. Violation takes the trappings of a rape-revenge plot and has its characters and its audience sit in the trauma of violence without casting a judgmental eye. It lays things bare and like Miriam, even if justice is done, you won’t soon forget how you got there—and maybe you shouldn’t.
