Art cinema abounds with images that shock, and scenes of rape are amongst the most controversial of these. As Tanya Horeck summarises, ‘Visual images of rape have always been especially contentious’ and singled out as ‘objects of moral outrage’. This is true for both popular culture images and those circulating in the domain of art film. Indeed, some of the most notoriously provocative (and celebrated) works in global art cinema concern acts of rape. It is an implied event in Last Year at Marienbad (L’Année dernière à Marienbad, Alain Resnais, 1961) and Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950), a relentlessly recurring act in Salò, the 120 days of Sodom (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975) and Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003), and a graphically portrayed crime in Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont, 2003) and Irréversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002). Scenes of rape in art cinema are frequently so provocative that they prompt acts of spectatorial resistance such as walkouts and boycotts. Irréversible, with its lengthy and violent assault of the female protagonist, is an indicative case that reportedly prompted extensive walkouts at the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. Scenes of violent cruelty in Trier’s Dogville and Dumont’s Twentynine Palms also allegedly provoked viewers to leave the screenings at the 2003 Cannes and Venice Film Festivals respectively. Short of riots or threats against the director, such acts of spectatorial rejection are the most overt evidence of provocation available. They express outrage, offence, distress, upset and a moral and ethical objection to the text.

The issue of women-authored or feminist images of rape, whether in art cinema or popular film, is a complex one. Although men, women and non-binary people can commit and be victims of sexual assault, rape is often understood as a crime that men commit and women experience, both in the social world and in narrative cinema. Moreover, as Alexandra Heller-Nicholas notes, ‘There is a mainstream assumption that women make certain types of films’ and that ‘ones with graphic violence – sexual or otherwise – do not fall into that terrain’. Yet women directors have depicted rape onscreen many times, sometimes explicitly.