A young woman practices archery, perfecting the balance between her breathing and her use of the bow, to make the perfect shot each time she aims. Off the target range though, her skill has a much more base application.
I watched this short film sight unseen; it is the way I like to watch short films in particular, since the investment of time is limited and if you have a good source (like a blog) then you can be reasonably sure that the hit rate will be high. So coming into this film was a strange experience to be in the middle of a rape revenge film, without any context provided until quite far into the killing spree. The film opens with a calm, controlled teenager on the target range. We then move to a bunch of teenage boys in the showers at the gym in college; the girl enters this area and as they banter about sex and women, she begins to fire her arrows – targeting their genitals in particular, but also happy to kill. It is not until one of the young men says something about "only watching" that we understand she must have been raped. This continues until we find ourselves back on the range in a competition, and the film ends.
I am frequently wrong on matters of taste, but I am surprised that this short is well considered and won awards, because I found it disappointingly empty and with little to recommend it for except the gruesome pleasure it seems ot take from the girl's revenge. Without context it is hard to go with, and it is had to understand what the motivation for the film is, beyond just being a simple exploitation- level revenge movie – although the serious core subject, and the bookending with the less gory focus on the character and her craft, it suggests otherwise. It is technically well made, and the violence is hard to watch, but it plays out so simply and with such base goals that it is hard to find much else that it is trying to do – and for me, the shock value and violence was not enough.
I watched this short film sight unseen; it is the way I like to watch short films in particular, since the investment of time is limited and if you have a good source (like a blog) then you can be reasonably sure that the hit rate will be high. So coming into this film was a strange experience to be in the middle of a rape revenge film, without any context provided until quite far into the killing spree. The film opens with a calm, controlled teenager on the target range. We then move to a bunch of teenage boys in the showers at the gym in college; the girl enters this area and as they banter about sex and women, she begins to fire her arrows – targeting their genitals in particular, but also happy to kill. It is not until one of the young men says something about "only watching" that we understand she must have been raped. This continues until we find ourselves back on the range in a competition, and the film ends.
I am frequently wrong on matters of taste, but I am surprised that this short is well considered and won awards, because I found it disappointingly empty and with little to recommend it for except the gruesome pleasure it seems ot take from the girl's revenge. Without context it is hard to go with, and it is had to understand what the motivation for the film is, beyond just being a simple exploitation- level revenge movie – although the serious core subject, and the bookending with the less gory focus on the character and her craft, it suggests otherwise. It is technically well made, and the violence is hard to watch, but it plays out so simply and with such base goals that it is hard to find much else that it is trying to do – and for me, the shock value and violence was not enough.
