Classic Movie Review: 'Ms.45'

With Abel Ferrara's incredibly prescient and exciting 1981 rape-revenge movie, Ms. 45, we've set ourselves quite a task. To parse the metaphors thickly woven into Ferrara's narrative is at once easy as you can identify them quickly, and a massive undertaking as the director has exhausted every possible metaphor to the point where the movie remains controversial, striking and resonant today as it ever was in 1981.

Let's begin with a basic premise: Ms. 45 stars Zoe Tamerlis as Thana, a mute seamstress living in New York City and hiding away from the world. Thana wants to be left alone and regularly ducks out on her friendly co-workers who appear eager to be her friend. Thana's inability to speak makes her self-conscious.

This won't matter for much however, once the story of Ms. 45 kicks in. Thana has skipped out on after work drinks with her co-workers for a night home alone in her apartment. As she is making her way home we are privy to information she doesn't have. Director Abel Ferrara shows us a man who has broken into an apartment and is rifling through someone's things for something to steal.

Context clues indicate that this is Thana's apartment and we immediately fear for her arrival home. Before that happens however, Thana is attacked by a random mugger, played by director Abel Ferrara, who drags her into an alley and brutally and quickly sexually assaults her. Thana is left a crying heap in an alley, scared and traumatized.

When Thana finally gets up the strength, she heads back to her apartment where, if you've forgotten, another man is waiting. Peter Yellen portrays the nameless Burglar and when Thana arrives home he leaps to the attack. First, the Burglar asks for money but not finding any and Thana unable to tell him even if she had any money, the Burglar sexually assaults her.

This leads to a struggle wherein Thana hits the Burglar over the head with a blunt object, and knocks him semi-conscious. Thana then finds the strength to grab a clothing iron and finish the job on the bad guy, killing him with a single, heavy blow. Finding the Burglar's gun on her floor, she squirrels it away and sets about the task of steadying herself.

From there, Thana cuts up the Burglar's body and begins dispersing it all over New York City. Then she takes the gun and begins taking revenge on all of the many, many creeps she sees on a daily basis on the streets of New York City including a handsy and aggressive photographer and a violent and aggressive pimp.

All of this violence builds to a crescendo at a Halloween party where Thana, dressed as a nun, we'll come back to that, first murders her lecherous boss and then shoots any man who crosses her sight before she is literally stabbed in the back by one of her female co-workers. Thana dies, betrayed and managing with her last breath to utter the word, 'Sister.'

As I said earlier, where do we begin with Ms. 45. In 1981 we didn't have the notion of terms like rape culture and misogyny was only beginning to gain traction as something that our culture needed to stamp out. In this way, director Abel Ferrara was far ahead of his time. Ferrara brought bloody revenge to those who harmed, exploited or even creeped out an innocent, voiceless woman.

Let's go there, how about Thana being a mute? This is rather obviously symbolic of how many victims feel as if their voice had been taken from their by their attacker. It's both a symbolic and stylistic choice as Thana's lack of voice gives the final scene of the movie an incredible power. I won't spoil it here as I want you to experience this movie as so many people have never even heard of it.

Ms, 45 is a revelation, a rare movie from our past that feels remarkable relevant today. Relevant is an understatement really, Ms. 45 feels prescient, as if director Abel Ferrara saw the future and brought it to the screen. Then again, it is more likely that Ferrara simply was one of the few people listening to a phenomenon that has gone on for decades and only now is getting the rebuke it has always needed.