• HOME
• ESSENTIALS
• GIALLO
• HALLOWEEN
• ITALY
• MISCELLANY
• U.S.A.
• THE BLOG

DEFENCELESS

Mark Savage's excellent DEFENCELESS is a tough nut to crack. At it's core, DEFENCELESS is little more than a rape/revenge flick, no different from LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE or any of the dozens or more flicks that poured into grindhouses and drive-ins in the 70s and 80s. The distinction is in the presentation. Savage chose to make a film completely devoid of dialog, a bold decision given the kind of audience this film would ultimately attract. Set to a sometimes beautiful, sometimes chilling score by George Papinocalaou, DEFENCELESS is a throwback to the days of the silent film, a grand experiment in even grander Grand Guignol style. It would be easy to dismiss DEFENCELESS as pure novelty but it's vivid atrocities, emotional black hole of a narrative, near flawless execution and unnerving beauty demands our attention and our consideration. DEFENCELESS is no one-off gag or pointless exercise in directorial masturbation. It is, in every conceivable way, the real deal.

Elizabeth comes under the ire of three land developers when she refuses to sell her beach-front property. They don't take too kindly to her refusal, murdering her ex-husband and sending her photographs of the corpse. Undeterred, she holds fast to her position. But these are not men willing to count their losses and give up. They kidnap her lesbian girlfriend and videotape themselves raping her. At first, they only send Elizabeth the footage. Then they send Elizabeth her girlfriend's head, threatening to kill her son if she calls the police. She still refuses their offer. One day, while Elizabeth and her son are at the beach, the men appear. They rape and murder Elizabeth, tossing her body into the ocean.

We flash forward nine months, a young girl is playing on the beach when she stumbles across Elizabeth lying face down on the sand. Strangely enough, our heroine appears to have survived the attack. As we soon learn, this is not quite the case. Dazed, practically infantile in many regards, Elizabeth is not quite the same. That becomes very apparent once she realizes the spot she and her new friend are playing on is the same spot where she buried the head of her girlfriend. Digging through the dirt like an animal, Elizabeth discovers the decomposing head... and promptly starts gobbling it up. It doesn't take long for Elizabeth to start to remember other events of her life, including her death. Bloody, violent revenge soon follows.

DEFENCELESS is going to be torture for many people in more ways than one. Those people looking for a quick, gory fix are going to be disappointed. The violent set-pieces are indeed bloody but they are relatively few and far between and not very explicit. Most of the violence occurs offscreen with little more than geysers of blood splattering people faces. There are, however, several graphic castrations that may cause the male members of the audience to wince. But overall the violence on display isn't nearly as reprehensible as the violence contained in some of these flicks. The real disturbing element of the film is rape. Both of the on-screen rapes in the film feel real and are definitely powerful - a few keys moments made me wonder whether or not Savage had ever seen WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?. A pair of blood soaked panties following the videotaped raping of a little girl - thankfully not shown - provides the most potent image in the entire film, one that floated around in the back of my mind for hours after my first viewing of DEFENCELESS.

The representation of our main character is a bit off-putting at times. Susanne Hausschmid is a very beautiful woman and undeniably sexy but it is a bit strange to see her castrating men while wearing a black bra and half-slip. Plus, the half-staggering shuffle she - or Savage - chose for her character in the second half is borderline comedic - imagine one drop dead sexy Frankenstein's Monster and you get the idea. Whether it was Savage's intention to take a strong-willed, empowered woman and reduce her to a staggering, half-naked cannibal to prove some kind of point is beyond me and quite frankly I'm not really interested. DEFENCELESS, in my opinion, does not need to be critically examined and dissected. It works as a simple, elegant exercise in creative filmmaking. It is a film that wallows in the same kind of filth as the American quickies that served as it's inspiration but manages through it's execution and masterful direction to transcend not only it's subject matter but the entire rape/revenge sub-genre itself.

Kudos to Mr. Savage.

Highly recommended.