Review: Revanche (2008)

Revanche is a German-made thriller about two things: the deep needs of female's and the criminal nature of males. Revanche tells the story of a miserable couple who go by the names of Alex and Tamara. Alex and Tamara both work at a seedy Vienna brothel where he works as a bouncer and she works as a prostitute. The two are very unhappy, with Alex sneaking around to have romantic encounters with Tamara behind his boss' back and Tamara being up to her eyeballs in debt that she will never be able to pay off on her own. Even the pimp who Tamara works for has his eye on her, where one day he visits her for sexual purposes and Alex is forced to hide under the bed humiliatingly. Realizing that they both are in need and want for a change, Alex decides to rob a bank for money that will pay off Tamara's debts and allow the two of them to run away and begin a new life. Tamara naturally begins to become nervous of Alex's plot even though he reassures her that nothing will go wrong even to go as far as making sure the gun isn't loaded.
But things do go wrong and a cop shows up and surprises Alex and Tamara as they get into the getaway car, whereupon Alex chooses to take shelter at his father's cottage in the country. It's here that the story changes from cops and robber and turns into a more human story about revenge and, ultimately, acceptance. While in the country Alex meets Susanne, the wife of his neighbor who is the cop who surprised him during the robbery.  Susanne desperately wants to have a child and the audience soon discovers that her husband is void of the ability of making her pregnant, so she begins pursuing Alex who is the the son of her old neighbor that she deeply cares for. The two of them begin having relations on a regular basis, but nothing of the long lasting relationship kind and it's during this that the real conflict of the film begins to arise. It's the possibility of violence. There's the risk of Alex's exposure as a criminal, there's the threat their togetherness presents to Susanne's marriage, and there is the possibility of harm coming to the old man. Instead of using these things to manipulate the story, they are used just to help convey a well fleshed out story.

Perhaps what I liked about this film the most was how the actors were unknown (at least to me they were to me, after all I'm not that well oriented with modern German cinema). In today's cinema, many actors are chosen because they will draw in moviegoers and make money, they are stars that directors and studios know will bring in money if their name is slapped onto the poster of the movie. This film works due to how normal the actors look, they are believable in the setting of the movie. They are unglamorous, they are plausible. Tamara represents the value that looks have in a buyer's market, and Alex looks like the lowest common denominator of society who has been worn down even more by crime and prison throughout his life.