REVANCHE
Written & Directed by Götz Spielmann
Produced by Mathias Forberg, Heinz Stussak, Spielmann & Sandra Bohle
Released by Janus Films
German with English subtitles
Austria. 121 min. Not Rated
With Johannes Krisch, Ursula Strauss, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust & Hannes Thanheiser 
 

At the start of Revanche, the tranquil waters of a pond are suddenly disturbed by a mysterious plummeting object. It’s an intentionally transparent metaphor for the disruption of orderly life by chance, and it provides the seed for a narrative bursting at the seams with existential angst. As with any existentially driven story, there’s a danger of slipping into navel gazing, needless abnegation, or hormonal raging. But Revanche (German for “revenge”) doesn’t rage, nor does it mope; it quietly broods, engaging in serious contemplation.

Alex (played by a marvelously understated Johannes Krisch) is an assistant in a brothel located in a seedy part of Vienna. He and his Ukrainian girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potapenko), who works in the same brothel and is routinely roughed up by customers, have plans for a better life in Ibiza, and Alex—like so many misguided antiheroes before him—thinks it would be a great idea to rob a bank. He devises a plan that he repeatedly insists can’t go wrong. Of course, that means it probably will; and so it does, when a local cop (Andreas Lust) unexpectedly intervenes, leading to tragic consequences. In the aftermath, Alex is left to deal with the hand fate dealt him; that is, if he subscribes to providence.
 
At least initially, Revanche’s plotline and theme bear a distant resemblance to The Killing (1956), one of the early films from the late, great Stanley Kubrick. At the conclusion of The Killing—a much more pulpy, genre-driven noir caper—a meticulously planned heist unravels when fate rears its proverbial ugly head, bringing to a violent crash the plans that the heist’s mastermind worked so slavishly to lay in place. While the existential touch was added to Kubrick’s film as a clever punctuation, it’s used here as an entree into the psyches of the film’s major players. “Why am I plagued by bad luck?” one asks, and indeed “plagued” is a good word to describe the condition of Revanche’s characters.
 
Without getting too detailed (to do so would be to divulge plot points best kept secret), they are left to deal with the ramifications of their actions. Director Götz Spielmann wisely lets the drama arise out of giving them breathing space and simply letting us watch them in action, often in static single-shot scenes. It’s a powerful antithesis to the common practice of making drama overt, demonstrative, even hyperbolic. Spielmann is also not afraid to get a little religious. The film’s latter half abandons the urban in favor of the bucolic, and each person seeks refuge from inner demons in the Austrian countryside. Spielmann unambiguously treats nature as an almost sentient force, an animate bringer of wisdom and truth. But as the characters find out, solitude isn’t solace, and Spielmann thankfully doesn’t let the breathtaking images (filmed by Martin Gschlacht) devolve into a pantheistic reverie. 
 
By the time we return to that ripple in the pond, we’ve witnessed many disturbing things. There’s no easy interpretation, and the people are no less scarred than they were before. Yet there is an elusive kind of closure, and it’s fully worthy of the bittersweet irony of the title. Rich Zwelling
May 1, 2009