Product: Day of the Woman (1978)
Rating: 5.0
a film that exists to be good
To give you an idea which side of the fence I'm on regarding whether the rape-revenge film I Spit on Your Grave is a female empowerment masterpiece or exploitation garbage, I submit the following: In 1978, when the film was originally submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America for a theatrical rating, it was given an "X." In order to insure an "R" rating, director Meir Zarchi made 17 minutes of cuts. It's this shorter, less explicit version that was released theatrically. In January of 1984, the MPAA sued the producers of I Spit on Your Grave, alleging that prior to the film's home video release, the filmmakers went back and secretly reinserted the excised 17 minutes. The producers clearly hoped the MPAA wouldn't notice, meaning this longer, more explicit cut would retain the "R" rating of the theatrical version.Zarchi eventually told United Press International he wasn't sure which version of the film ended up on video store shelves, which is like saying you can't remember if your 3-year old baby is a boy or a girl. He knew exactly what version of the film had been submitted to the MPAA (the shorter, less explicit cut) and he knew exactly what version had been released on video (the longer, more explicit cut). And it only goes to prove one thing: Zarchi knew that if he stuffed his film with enough sexual violence (as opposed to enough female empowerment overtones) he'd have done his job as an exploitation filmmaker.Mind you, there is nothing wrong with being an exploitation filmmaker. Exploitation films have a legitimate place in movie history and some of them (including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Abel Ferrara's Ms.45) are pretty enjoyable. Still, don't throw in a snippet of Sola Perduta Abandonnato by Puccini (which our heroine listens to as one of her tormentors bleeds to death) and use it as proof that the film is a deep-thinking, pro-woman, gender empowerment treatise. Frankly, I wouldn't mind any of this if I Spit On Your Grave was a well-written, well-directed film with interesting characters. It is clearly not. If the film works you up emotionally, it's because you'd have to be clinically dead not to feel for a woman being repeatedly raped and beaten. But this doesn't mean I'm watching a good film. It just means I'm human. There is very little dialogue in the movie, and what's there is not particularly well written. The entire film can be scanned in about 45 minutes, with absolutely no loss of impact. There are endless shots of boats floating on the water and people walking through the woods. This is not to create mood or dread or suspense. Actually, I'm not sure what it's for. I'll have to get back to you on that.As our sordid saga begins, Jennifer Hills (played by Meir Zarchi's wife Camille Keaton) is on her way to a secluded cabin in the woods to write her first novel. We know the cabin is secluded because we spend endless, dialogue-free minutes watching Jennifer drive from the city to the country. After arriving at the cabin, groceries from the local store are delivered by Matthew (Richard Pace), a developmentally disabled fellow who looks like he wandered in off the set of Revenge of the Nerds. When Matthew reports back to his three friends that there's a hot babe in town, they do what any other young, healthy American male would do: they rape, sodomize and beat her within an inch of her life. The rape sequence is about thirty minutes long. One could argue that unless the rape is particularly brutal, Jennifer's eventual revenge would not seem so triumphant to her and satisfying to the audience. I argue that this film exists solely for the thirty-minute rape sequence, and the comeuppance that follows is only to avoid having the film branded as virtual snuff, meaning it would never be distributed in theaters.I will say this: during the extended rape sequence comes the only decent bit of filmmaking in the movie. After being raped, a naked Jennifer wanders around the woods. She eventually comes across one of her assailants, sitting on a rock, playing the harmonica. Eventually, another assailant comes into view and slowly, menacingly, begins to approach her. As the man gets closer, the tempo of the other man's harmonica playing gets faster, which ratchets up the drama accordingly. It's effective, but so was my last prostate exam, and I felt pretty much the same way during both.So, with Jennifer suitably stripped of her dignity, she decides to get revenge upon the four rapists. If I was ever going to enjoy this film, it would have been here, as Jennifer extracts juicy, ironic punishment on her tormentors. However, the film really fails here. Dramatically slack, Zarchi depends upon lazy writer's conceits to get each man to his grave. Matthew's comeuppance makes the most sense overall. However, if Jennifer's plan for Johnny (Eron Tabor) includes giving him her gun, she's taking an unrealistic gamble that he wouldn't just kill her right there (of course, his death is the best in the film, so that counts for something). From a screenplay standpoint, the last two men are dispatched rather lazily (it depends, among other contrivances, on Jennifer being able to steer a motorboat with pinpoint accuracy). The fact that the last two men die in an uncreative fashion, ninety seconds before the end credits, shows that Zarchi had lost interest by that point.In fact, any self-respecting film lover will have lost interest long before that. Ultimately, what's galling about I Spit On Your Grave is not what it is (exploitation film). It's what it's trying to pass itself off as (feminist revenge saga). Meir Zarchi would have made an excellent used car salesman