If there’s anything that gets my goat more than apocalypse films, and superhero films, it’s revenge flicks. Revenge movies make up some of the best cinema I’ve ever seen, from Samurai epics, to Western tales, and Abel Ferrera’s “Ms. 45” is that revenge movie in the vein of “I Spite on your Grave” where a woman who has suffered the crime of rape, now strikes out against all men, instead of the men who hurt her. Anna is a meek mute girl who designs clothes during the day time. On the way home, she’s anally raped on the street, and then staggers home wounded to find that a man has broken into her home and, angered that she has no valuables, decides to rape her… again.
Anna can’t catch a break, as you can imagine.
“Ms. 45” may be a viciously anti-male thriller with a protagonist prone to the same cruelty the men who ravaged her are, but considering this was made in 1981, it’s really more about context of the period. 1980’s New York was a pretty destitute and crime ridden place, with threats looming at every end of the street. “Ms. 45” is that film about young women being sexually destroyed at a time where rape was always a concern. The symbolism here though that helps this stand out, is that Anna is a young woman without a voice, who finds one with the 45 she takes from her attacker. This allows her courage and the will to attack those willing to attack her.
But “Ms. 45” isn’t all a glorified take on revenge, as it paints Anna as a person unwilling to be pushed around by men and inevitably taking a psychopathic turn shooting any male she thinks poses a threat to her much like the 2007 “The Brave One.”Anna isn’t completely a black and white character who suddenly becomes a superhero with a gun. Aside from a .45 that inexplicably never runs out of bullets (Seriously, where does she get all the ammo?), actress Zo? Tamerlis gives a very good performance as the eponymous character who undergoes a very gradual and fascination transformation, from a gawking worker to a vicious killer with no sympathy for any man she comes across on the streets.
The inevitable consequences of Anna’s actions and declining sanity lead to a climactic blood bath reminiscent of DePalma’s “Carrie” exemplifying a woman’s rage in the face of an unforgiving society that more than makes up for the film’s shortcomings, in the end. Not only does the irony of Anna pairing herself with a phallic weapon work to the film’s advantage, but the bearing of her best friend with a phallic tool to bring her spree to an end works on many levels of poetic irony and dark wit that’s capped off by a bittersweet closing scene. Sure, it’s aged and in many ways it’s cheesy and illogical, but “Ms.45” is nonetheless a clever and very morbid take on sexual violence on the cusp of the eighties, and the effects it can have on the quiet individuals we often deem as harmless.