Revanche

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4.75

 

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Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program. Nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Director: Götz Spielmann Country: Austria (2008) Language: German with English subtitles Running Time: 121 minutes Read Erik McClanahan's review of this film. Two very different couples, one from the city and the other from the country, are bound together by unexpected twists of fate in this taut thriller about an ex-con, Alex, who plans to help his girlfriend, Tamara, escape from a brothel and the dark life in which they are trapped. Elegantly spinning primal elements of guilt, compassion, love, revenge, faith and redemption, Revanche asks, “Whose fault is it if life doesn’t go your way?” Recently nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, Revanche has been recognized with 14 other awards, including the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Award at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film at the 2008 Berlin Panorama, the Art-Cinéma-Award 2008 of the CICAE and the Diagonale Prize as best Austrian film at the 2008 Diagonale. Cinema Scope’s Robert Koehler says of Revanche, “The film charts the effects of doubling in a dazzling number of ways, equating it with both a locked-in repetition and a second chance (per the title); but most dramatically of all, it charts various escape routes. In this strategy, Spielmann combines a meticulous structural form with emotional truth, a thorough poetics with a penetrating understanding of human nature.” See a preview of Revanche.