Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Revanche (a film by Gotz Spielmann)

Revanche, a 2008 film written and directed by Götz Spielmann, is good. Very, very good. It's a film that feels weighted every moment, like something inevitable and awful will happen, despite the characters' best of intentions.  And so it goes: In a seedy area of Vienna, an ex-con man Alex works in a brothel where he meets and falls for Tamara, a Ukranian hooker.  In an attempt to protect Tamara, pay off her debts that keep her tied to the brothel owner, and take her away with him, Alex plans a bank heist.  But Alex's encounter with a rural cop and later the cop's wife leads them all toward a different conclusion, one that uncovers human frailty in the face of love  loyalty, and revenge.

The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2008 and won a number of awards. It was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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