Coralie Fargeat is not a subtle filmmaker. Known for her stunning visuals and minimal dialogue, the French writer/director employs sharp color contrasts and uncomfortably close framing to fill her aggressive stories with intensity.
As part of the new wave of French Extremity, Fargeat blends the movement’s trademark violence and gore with previously established subgenres to highlight the dangers of a patriarchal world.
After studying at the prestigious La Fémis, Fargeat turned heads with her 2017 feature debut, Revenge, a hot pink rape-revenge fantasy which ignited newfound calls for diversity behind the camera. Seven years later, her body horror nightmare The Substance would provoke similar conversation, upending Hollywood with Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress for star Demi Moore, and Best Picture, not to mention a win for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Though they differ wildly in subject matter, both films see Fargeat use her stunning visual flair to eviscerate the cinematic male gaze, revealing the damage sexualized objectification can cause.
Our understanding of the male gaze as seen in modern filmmaking dates back to a 1975 essay from feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” describes the harmful practice of depicting women as objects of desire for an audience assumed to be heterosexual men. Denied agency, female characters exist as ornaments or components of a male-driven plot.
By contrast, films told through the female gaze center on women imbued with empowerment. Rather than dehumanized tools to facilitate male need, they are complex characters with interior lives. We are invited, not to simply view their bodies but to join in their emotional journeys.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Revenge (2017)
Fargeat’s first feature explores this dichotomy with overtly contrasting imagery. Revenge begins with a tightly-framed man looking toward the camera in a pair of mirrored sunglasses. As if reflecting the male gaze back at us, Fargeat slowly pans out to reveal a blond bombshell sitting just over his shoulder. We will soon learn that Richard (Kevin Janssens) is a wealthy businessman on an illicit getaway with his mistress, Jen (Matilda Lutz). With the male gaze on full display, Jen climbs out of a helicopter and waltzes into his desert cabana, suggestively licking a lollipop.
The camera zooms in on her scantily clad body in a cropped pink top and short, pleated skirt. Moments later, Jen kneels to perform oral sex, visually confirming her place in the story: an object to facilitate male desire.
Though she expected time alone with her boyfriend, Jen is surprised to find his “associates”, Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède), have arrived a day early for their hunting trip. Caught off guard, she reverts to a position of submissiveness and accommodates their ogling with gracious flirtation, assuming Richard will protect her from any unwanted advances.
But the next morning, Jen wakes to find Richard away on an errand, having left her alone with his lecherous friends. She politely tries to brush off Stan’s awkward propositions, but he throws her sensual behavior back in her face. He implies that her feigned interest from the night before now obligates her to sleep with him and prepares to force himself on her.
As Stan violently presses Jen against the bedroom window, they notice that Dimitri is watching from the open doorway. He stares at this uncomfortable scene — with Jen clearly in distress — and calmly munches on a snack. Fargeat zooms in on his lips and teeth as they rip apart the marshmallowy treat, highlighting the consumptive nature of his voyeurism. He is the male gaze personified, ignoring Jen’s humanity while finding gratification in her subservience. Dimitri walks away and turns on the TV to drown out Jen’s screams, turning away from the violent rape happening just out of sight.
Richard’s response to this assault is heartbreaking. In a soothing voice, he explains that Jen cannot go home and must start her life over in Canada to keep from negatively impacting his own. Still an object in his eyes, she’s now outlived her usefulness. When Jen balks at this horrific “solution,” Richard chases her, barefoot, into the desert and pushes her off a high cliff. She lands on a dead tree, impaled by a branch that protrudes from her stomach, a visual representation of the unwanted penetration that has dramatically changed the course of her life.
From here, Fargeat intentionally switches to the female gaze. Somehow managing to survive the fall, Jen frees herself from the tree and evades the men now hunting her. When Dimitri tries to drown her in a dirty lake, she stabs him in the eye with his own hunting knife — symbolic punishment for passively watching her assault. Finding refuge in a cave, Jen tends to her wounds, numbing the pain with hallucinogens that cause a disorienting psychotic break. Fargeat again zooms in on Jen’s body, this time lingering on her gaping wound. As she removes the branch from her abdomen, we’re confronted with the visceral pain caused by the men’s objectification.
Outside the cave, Fargeat formalizes this narrative shift as a hardened Jen uses binoculars to survey the dusty landscape. No longer dressed in supple pink, she is now outfitted for battle. Her hair — darkened by blood and dirt — hangs limply down her back while her black utilitarian underwear is accessorized with Dimitri’s heavy weapons. After cauterizing her wound with a flattened beer can, Jen’s stomach now bears the branded outline of an eagle, symbolizing her phoenix-like rise from the flames of male entitlement. Only a pair of bright star earrings reminds us of the eroticized bombshell she used to be.
Fargeat follows Jen’s quest for grisly revenge as she hunts her attackers through the desert. Reversing the chase that sent her over the cliff, Jen manages to drive a shard of glass into the sole of Stan’s foot, a tender penetration that mirrors his abhorrent attack. Next, Jen tracks Richard back to the cabana, the scene of his ultimate betrayal. Like a raging bull, he chases her, naked through the house, his dangerous masculinity on full display.
Blood pours over the camera and covers the walls as Richard shames Jen for fighting back, incensed that she would dare prioritize her own safety over his convenience. In a final act of catharsis, she sticks her hand in his abdominal wound, then shoots him with his own phallic weapon. The film ends with Jen walking towards the sound of an approaching helicopter before turning to stare back into the camera. Mirroring Fargeat’s opening shot, we no longer see Jen through Richard’s demeaning gaze, but have fully aligned with her emotional journey.
The Substance (2024)
Fargeat’s second feature begins with the female gaze while exploring women’s complicity in a disturbing pattern of dehumanization. The Substance introduces us to Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) on her 50th birthday as she leads a popular workout show. After encouraging her audience to persevere through the daunting routine, she blows a kiss to the camera and urges us all to take care of ourselves.
Next, she walks down a crimson gauntlet decorated with life-sized portraits from her career, displayed to show her advancing age. In the bathroom, she overhears network executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) demanding a younger, more beautiful replacement. Similar to Richard’s predatory gaze, he sees her as nothing more than a sexual object and is now preparing to toss her aside.
Harvey delivers this news to Elisabeth while devouring a plate full of messy prawns, smearing creamy sauce and mangled carcasses all over his side of the table. Fargeat focuses on the disgusting man’s lips and teeth, amplifying Dimitri’s grotesque snack. As the producer of a popular show, Harvey sees women as nothing more than pawns in his own career advancement. He’s made a fortune from objectifying Elisabeth while training the audience of men and women to join this voyeuristic consumption.
Desperate to recapture her fading youth, Elisabeth begins a mysterious treatment called the Substance, which promises to unlock a “better” version of herself — simply defined as “younger and more beautiful.” We feel Elisabeth’s despair as she gazes at herself in the bathroom mirror, mourning the relentless passage of time. But Fargeat scans her body with loving care, presenting the naked actress as beautiful regardless of her age or size. Labeled Activator, the bright green serum initiates a harmful male gaze as Elisabeth’s back opens like a seam, giving birth to a fully formed younger woman. With her older self lying lifeless on the floor, Sue (Margaret Qualley) marvels at her body in the mirror, seductively stretching to display her newly restored physical perfection.
Like early scenes following Jen, Fargeat presents Sue with an explicit male gaze. Her workout show becomes a graphic dance, barely recognizable as exercise. In close shots of her body, we watch as Sue leans into this objectification, pleased with her ability to tantalize. Winking at the camera, she also reminds the audience to take care of themselves, but Sue’s delivery feels more ominous. No longer a compassionate message of self-care, she seems to be warning viewers to maintain their physical attractiveness or face losing their worth in a patriarchal world.
The Substance’s only non-negotiable rule is that subjects must evenly split their time, switching back and forth every seven days. This zero-sum system reveals the impossible standards of physical beauty as each sign of humanity becomes an amplified flaw. When Elisabeth binges on rotisserie chicken, the shape of a wing pops up on Sue’s body, creating an unsightly lump. And each time Sue overstays her allotted time, Elisabeth’s body is irreparably harmed. Her fingers and legs become gnarled with unsightly wrinkles and liver spots while her hair grows gray and wiry.
Hoping to bolster her self-esteem, Elisabeth makes a date with an adoring old beau who calls her “the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world.” But as she’s preparing to walk out the door, Elisabeth catches a glimpse of Sue’s perfect body and immediately feels inadequate. She begins modifying her look, wiping off lipstick and adding clothes, until she eventually breaks down in angry tears. This devastating yet relatable scene perfectly captures the pain of the internalized male gaze. Caught in an endless cycle of objectification, Elisabeth can only find value in her outward appearance.
As the story barrels towards its breathtaking conclusion, the women inevitably turn on each other. Elisabeth mirrors Harvey’s grotesque eating style — implying she’s adopted his dangerous gaze — while Sue dramatically overstays her time, transforming the older body into a twisted hag. This mutual disdain and misplaced anger explode into a vicious fight to the death. Sue bashes Elisabeth’s face on the bathroom sink, the site of her internalized degradation, then tosses her mangled body aside. But just moments later, she realizes that by giving in to her rage, she has permanently cut off the source of her vitality.
With no more stabilizing fluid to drain from Elisabeth, Sue’s body begins to fall apart in the hours leading up to an all-important New Year’s Eve show. Facing certain death, she injects herself with the leftover Activator, expecting to birth a younger, more perfect version of herself. But what emerges from her bisected spine is a hideous merging of the two women’s bodies.
Monstro ElisaSue is a humanoid composite of bulbous flesh and appendages sprouting from formless lumps that seem to be piled on top of each other. While Sue’s face is marred by melted skin, Elisabeth silently screams from halfway down the creature’s back. Determined to take the stage, Monstro ElisaSue styles what remains of her flowing hair and refashions Sue’s billowing blue dress to cover her misshapen form. With a picture of Elisabeth’s face plastered over her own, she lumbers back to the studio and the audience eagerly awaits the show, including Harvey, who boasts about his success in shaping a new male fantasy.
Though Monstro ElisaSue pleads with the audience to look past her imperfections — necessitating their use of the female gaze — they scream and run away in fear while men begin pushing her back and forth. As her malformed body deconstructs, severed appendages spray blood all over the studio, painting the audience with the horror of their own complicity. Though the sobbing creature eventually makes it to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, perhaps finding comfort in her past success, Fargeat’s message is clear: Elisabeth’s dedication to appeasing the male gaze has come at the expense of her humanity.
Both Revenge and The Substance conclude with torrents of blood, exposing the brutal violence underlying the male gaze. Though she ultimately transcends objectification, Jen is punished for existing as a beautiful woman in a world where men see her as a sexual commodity. Elisabeth’s own tragic demise is the culmination of a lifetime spent internalizing this predatory lens and trying to maintain an impossible ideal. But Fargeat deftly uses the female gaze to remind us that both women are victims of a degrading system in which we all participate. Her shockingly violent films challenge us to interrogate our part in a world designed to dehumanize women, lest we all end up with blood on our hands.
