Critics reviews

Without the benefit of retrospect, there would be no way to fathom that with Revanche Spielmann has achieved a major artistic breakthrough; but even without having his past work in one’s back pocket, it’s clear that Revanche also marks something crucial to European film at this time.

Spielmann's film organises itself around a series of tensions – between city and country, criminality and the law, foreign and local, Christianity and atheism, virility and impotence, revenge and redemption – all of which are crystallised in the film's highly suspenseful deferral of the titular promise of retribution.

The writer-director, Götz Spielmann, doesn't resort to any manipulative thriller gimmicks – apart, arguably, from some repeated shots of a very worrying circular saw – and instead he lets Revanche unfold as a thoughtful drama which examines the aspirations and regrets of a small knot of people, some of whom may be bearing guns and grudges.

[T]he film exerts a steady grip without charging head-first into thriller territory: there’s a cool, cosmic irony to the way fate wheels around.

There is something frankly rickety and elaborate about Spielmann's narrative structure, but the first-class acting and direction glue it all together tight.

Tauntingly slow but hauntingly shot (and edited with crisp abruptness), it was a deserving nominee for Best Foreign Film...

It’s an open work: suggestive rather than conclusive; grave, without being heavy; thoughtful, rather than deep – but also too vague and finally unsatisfying. It’s boosted, however, by a set of affecting, low-key realist performances – notably that of Johannes Krisch as the ‘uncouth’ Alex – and enriched by some superbly lit images by cinematographer Martin Gschlacht.

Gradually the plot mechanism grinds down... What takes over and remains is all that really counts: memorable characters struggling with guilt, anger, love, desire, loss in a way we come to connect with and care about.

It’s a meditation on the right to retribution and the cold quality of blame but, best of all, it’s a hypnotic, twisty-turny exercise in suspense — the setting may be idyllic, but doom is never far away.

In Revanche, Spielmann uses his camera as a witness to the larger whole, to narrate our social and spiritual commonality—his animated camera movements and numinous imagery open up our limited awareness.

Revanche is a remarkable vision, not only for the beautifully unnerving artistry of its images but for its quizzical existential questioning.

Spielmann’s deft storytelling is coupled with immaculate compositions that constrain the characters as confidently as any prison bars. Revanche reveals Spielmann as a true master of his craft.