One of the most controversial and cult revenge films ever made, which was censored and banned in Sweden for its depiction of explicit sexual and violent revenge theme. The original uncut version, which I managed to watch, has shocking and disturbing depiction of graphic sex including many scenes seems like hard core porn. Undoubtedly the film is belonged to low budget B genre cinema but it’s not just another run on the mill film made for selling controversy of tabooed theme of that time. Even the extreme sexual images strike the audience without any sort of titillation; it invokes anything apart of hatred and disgust.
It begins with an eight or nine year old Madeleine raped in the park by an old man. Under the trauma and mental shock she became mute permanently. When she reached her youth, her innocence is kept on tormented by another man who first gave her lift in a car and next making her hooked to heroine to exploit her sexually to forced prostitution. Her refusal to first customer cost slicing of one of her eye. Soon under daily dose of dope addiction she surrendered her body to maniac customers- one who took her nude snaps on Nikon and another who’s a sadist lesbian. But she took all her humiliation damn seriously and started using her saved money and a weekly day off learning, practicing and planning for her revenge and the rest his blast of ticking dynamite.
Director Bo Arne Vibenius brilliantly used techniques of mise en scene, close ups, and POV shots correspondingly with chilly silence of mute victim who can’t show her pain or trauma through sound. The innovative use of electronic radio frequency sound used in graphic sex or violence or stylish use of super slow motion shootout bloodshed are things to feel audio visually. Remember Daryl Hannah’s one eyed killing character with an eye patch in Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’ which is a clear lift from this film. If I’m not mistaking its pioneer stepping stone of all those lady revenge flicks that keep popping up time after time whether it’s ‘Kill Bill’ in Hollywood or ‘Zakhmi Aurat’ in Bollywood. Its film which either you hate as disgusting crap or love for its eccentricity!
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