MUBI

A very powerful, incredibly put together tale of vengeance, guilt and regret. This is a perfect example of how to make a character piece right. Each of the main characters are suffering from guilt in their own ways and the profile on all three of them is brilliant. It gets so emotional the further along it goes and more and more tense, waiting to see which of these characters is going to crack first. They all create world where anything is reasonably possible, given what these people have suffered through. It’s just watching them fall further into their own internal pain, waiting to see who will let it out first and in what way. Everything is structured so well, nothing feels gratuitous or unnecessary. The acting from the whole cast is outstanding. Probably the most surprising part of the film is that the criminal we are introduced to at the very beginning ends up being the moral center of the film, as this man brings along one event that shatters the lives of a seemingly normal couple. Absolutely one of the best of ’09, something that everyone should see.

Austrian director Gotz Spielmann weaves a mesmerizing tale of chance, regret, redemption, and anger on both sides of the law after a botched robbery leaves a thief seeking revenge and a cop psychologically broken. Beautifully photographed, mainly in the countryside outside of Vienna, and achingly poignant, the film builds it’s twin strands of fateful circumstance to an almost unbearable pitch, leaving enough breathing room to eek out a possible future for these seemingly damned and depressed characters. Three key extras on Criterion’s Blu-ray include an early Spielmann short, a making of, and a 35-minute interview with the director.

A wonderful, surprising film. It’s a rare treat these days to genuinely not know where a film is going. Johannes Krisch is great in the lead role, one of those actors whose mere physical presence is fascinating.
I also loved the way it started out as fairly typical European arthouse miserabilism (a lot of which I enjoy, by the way), but ended up being something warmer and very human, with a good deal of compassion and forgiveness at its core.

Götz Spielmann’s Revanche is a dark allegory of the human mental fight — distinctly European; distinctly vanguard — an incisive influx of erotica, existentialism, optimism, pessimism, and, best of all, it’s told in a neo-realist fashion, so the film is tragically human and admirably perceptive of human nature and all its polarities. It certainly is an emotional piece; the surface of the film is painted morose, but under all that gloom is an indescribable and beautiful universal truth that’s relative to our human experience.

Austria’s 2009 Academy Award submission for best foreign language film, Revanche, is deceptively unambitious for a film that nabbed one of the five nomination slots as well as a handful of other awards. Director Götz Spielmann has crafted a dramatic and alternatively romantic thriller that owes some debt to, but is notably warmer than, the films of fellow countryman Michael Haneke. The film opens today in New York, Boston, and Seattle, but thanks to an inspired move by Janus Films (who are usually not in the first-run film business), the film was made available for an advanced press screening online through Janus/Criterion’s partnership with The Auteurs, a forerunner in high-quality streaming cinema.

Johannes Krisch is excellent as Alex, an ex-con working for a sleazy mob-type brothel owner in Vienna while secretly involved with a beautiful Ukrainian girl on the payroll. Their situation becomes quickly untenable and Alex’s plan for a new life includes robbing the bank in the rural village where his aging, widower, farmer grandfather lives. Things go wrong, of course, terribly wrong, but Spielmann orchestrates the dramatic motion in the most spare way, stripped of any attempt to achieve the Drama with a capital D as so many filmmakers would have tried. The opening scene of the film, which obtains meaning toward the end, is a sustained shot of the reflection of pines on a placid lake, the lack of visual movement standing in stark contrast to the rich layers of woodland sounds which heighten the experience. Eventually the tranquility is interrupted, and Spielmann has both set the tone and displayed his ideal aesthetic. If ever a thriller had the power to calm and center its viewer, this film is likely the closest anyone could possible get. (Originally posted on cinemamishmash.com)

Taut and exciting, the film wins on two scores: suspenseful and emotionally riveting. The characters are complex and broken, you don’t know whether you want them to find their way out of the box or let go of their sad lives all together. Beautifully directed, the quiet scenes of country life are shot with the same stillness that lies inside the heart of Krisch’s character, a heart that has seemed to stop beating.

Especially exciting for an American, is the concern the Austrian policemen shows over a death…in a world where women are used like horses, a character who actually cares for a life taken is a welcome piece of morality.

I look forward to seeing all of Mr. Spielmann’s work.

Nancy Cohen