Perhaps the age of European cinema has passed in America, gone the way of the dinosaurs with no one left to appreciate it. Audiences groan at stylized art house films, seem to view subtitles as a lot of unnecessary reading, and generally avoid anything that might be pretentious. Revanche is anything but pretentious, and Austrian director Götz Spielmann is more interested in telling a realistic and fascinating story than in enacting old clichés.

Revanche introduces us to two couples: one pair, Alex (Johannes Krisch) and Tamara (Irina Potapenko) scraping by in the red-light district of Vienna and the other, Robert (Andreas Lust) and Susanne (Ursula Strauss) living in the serene and untouched countryside. When a bank robbery goes awry, their seemingly separate lives as a handyman, a prostitute, a police officer, and a housewife come into startling contact. Whether you’ve lost everything or lack nothing, every person experiences a certain degree of loss, and Revanche is about that, too. It sounds basic, yes, but all the truly great films of our time have a plot that can be summed up in a few simple words. “Revanche” at its simplest means revenge, and the film is a fascinating study in human behavior and second chances.

The film itself is reminiscent of the works of Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieslowski, especially in tone — straightforward depictions of human suffering while surrounded by the eternally quiet European landscape as well as a firm insistence that coincidence and chance guide our lives despite our demand for control. Though the countryside is not idealized as much as it is simply depicted as different, further removed. Neither then is the city vilified wholly, but each place is home to people who take account of their surroundings and act from very definite beliefs. Religion, sexuality, love, and loss are all handled with a grace that is made more evident by the lack of a swelling score or soundtrack. Emotions are important, everything else has to flow from a behavior and that makes sense in the acting, which is understated and totally natural. Spielmann believes strongly enough in the places he has built and the people that inhabit them that the audience is not childishly led along by sound cues or told how to feel. We are given a space to experience the story and the trust to be able to do so well.

Allow me a moment to laud Spielmann’s use of color and framing, though this is also the doing of talented cinematographer Martin Gschlacht. There are several gasp-inducing scenes, simply beautiful and oddly tinged with a hint of the noir genre. The colors and composition found in the country are stunning, the greens so crisp and browns so ardently woodsy. The film has a remarkable number of medium shots rather than close-ups, which is the same technique employed by Scorsese when he feels a scene contains enough emotional power to merit it. This particular way of framing the characters allows us to see them in their environments as most of the characters are usually doing something with their entire bodies. Drawing you further in before you’ve even realized what has happened. There are surprising events, but they are surprising because the situation has been carefully brought to light and the characters are motivated, not surprising because of a loud noise or quick-paced editing.

In the special features, there is an extensive 30-minute interview with Spielmann in which he discusses his own methods as a director and explores his filmmaking process. It always heightens the appreciation of a film when you can know the motivation behind each element, and Spielmann makes some surprising choices as a director. He firmly believes that it is important not to rehearse too much, that when actors rehearse incessantly they become accustomed to their lines and it all begins to feel very scripted. Also, he finds it strange that we begin the filmmaking process by learning lines, since in real life we are motivated first by the situation and by a feeling and then we discover what it is we wish to say about it. Spielmann’s film certainly derives from a feeling, and a certain place, as some of the less talkative characters still feel real, alive, and authentic.

Also included is The Making of Revanche which is also a half hour in length, and was shot on set during the production of Revanche. Spielmann continues to talk about his work and we can see his directorial decisions in action as well as the perspective of many of the actors involved. So much work and energy and thought are evident in the film, it’s stunning to think of the sheer number of hours that eventually produce a two-hour film. Additionally included on the release is a forty-five minute film by Spielmann called Foreign Land made in the early eighties, and watching it confirms that Spielmann has had a sharp eye for scenery and been highly aware of all that goes on around him for decades.

Criterion has produced a beautiful film from beginning to end, the box and supplemental materials are all handled with evident care. Critic Armond White lends a fantastic essay to the release — though perhaps not as detailed as other Criterion essays tend to be, still a thoughtful work that improved my understanding of the film on many levels.

Are we in for a renaissance of films such as these? I don’t know; I certainly would love to see more films as well made and carefully thought out as Revanche. Most interesting is the way in which the film is seemingly about contrasts — between the old and the new, the young and the elderly, yet ultimately it is truly about how these contrasts aren’t as dividing as perhaps we have come to believe. Spielmann believes that people think themselves far more removed from each other than we truly are. In a world where the Internet has somehow made everyone feel more alone than ever before and it’s easier than ever to define yourself by what you are not, Revanche is a reminder and allows us the space to forget ourselves.

Revanche is available from Criterion.

Tags: criterion collection, revanche