Revanche

March 16, 2009 in photography by Arthur Fleischmann | 9 comments

revanche_plakata4Revanche (Revenge), written and directed by Austrian film-maker Götz Spielmann, is one of the best films I have seen recently and probably one of my all-time favourites. It was one of five films nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards (although it didn’t win eventually).

Do yourself a favour, lean back and take two minutes to watch the trailer. Also turn on the sound on your computer. It’s funny, the music is great in the trailer, but the actual film is rather quiet with no music at all. In this respect it reminded me of No Country for Old Men (a very different film, though, in many other aspects).

There is much I like about this movie, most is difficult to put in words, but one thing that really thourougly impressed me was the film’s cinematography, stunningly precise and beautiful, truly a visual delight. Here are some stills I grabbed from the DVD.

revanche1

revanche2

revanche3

revanche4

revanche5

revanche6

revanche7

If you enjoy slow-paced, intelligent and thought-provoking movies, go see this one.

Official Website

9 comments

  1. Thomas Moritz on March 16, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    Interesting, i will have a look after it- i like your screenshots from the film

  2. Dietmar on March 16, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    I read the story on wikipedia. Seems to be a very interesting film. Thank you.

  3. Dietmar on March 16, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    The pictures. Sometimes, you can watch a movie and see thousands of wonderful pictures next to another. How do they do that ??? :-)

    It seems this is one of these magic.

  4. Thomas Stoffaneller on March 16, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    yes, great one! …your choice of the stills is nice – they are also burned in my mind since i´ve seen the movie;
    “der Knochenmann” or some movies of Michael Haneke (Cache, die Klavierspielerin,…) are also worth checking out…
    regards
    Tom

  5. Stefan Loeliger on March 17, 2009 at 12:09 am

    thanks Arthur, never heard of this movie…the use of light is fantastic in your stills and the trailer…hope this will be shown in Swiss theaters soon…

  6. Arthur Fleischmann on March 17, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    Tom, I second your recommendation of the Haneke films. Although they are probably a bit more bleak/depressing in tone compared to Revanche. Have you seen Götz Spielmann’s previous film, Antares? I think it’s also very good, although I didn’t like it quite as much as Revanche. Also if you haven’t seen it beware that it includes some quite explicit (almost-pornographic) sex scenes.

    Knochenmann I just watched a few days ago, also enjoyed it very much. I really like Josef Hader’s stand-up comedy/cabaret work and while he may not be the greatest actor I think for the role of Brenner he is just about perfect.

    Stefan, if you have the chance go see this one in a theatre. I’m not sure if it will be shown anywhere in your area. In Austria it was in cinemas already back in 2008 and only after the Oscar nomination was it re-released in theatres in 2009, which is great because otherwise I would have missed it completely. On the website it says something about a release in April in Switzerland.

  7. Eva on March 17, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    There’s also a DVD, can be ordered here.

  8. michael bowring on March 17, 2009 at 7:16 pm

    3rd pic down, guess what? the plastic chair!!

  9. Arthur Fleischmann on March 17, 2009 at 7:44 pm

    Eva, you’re right the DVD is already available. There’s also special edition which includes a book (I got this one). Still, if you have a chance I’d recommend watching it in a cinema because it’s just a different experience.

    Maybe I shouldn “warn” people that the Austrian dialect spoken by the characters in this film might be difficult to understand for people who speak German but are not from Austria. For me (being Austrian) this is difficult to judge. I was a bit surprised that there are no German subtitles on the DVD (only English and French). I found another trailer in which you can hear some of the dialogue, and also a feature from Bavarian television, but beware the latter includes spoilers, in fact the whole plot is summarized.