The Criterion Collection

The name Götz Spielmann is still unknown to many North American movie watchers, but if reviews of Criterion’s release of his Oscar-nominated drama Revanche are any indication, this commanding Austrian filmmaker won’t remain in the shadows much longer. At Film.com, Amanda Mae Meyncke writes that Revanche is “reminiscent of the works of Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieslowski,” and calls it “a beautiful film from beginning to end.” She concludes, “I certainly would love to see more films as well made and carefully thought out as Revanche.” Home Theater Forum’s Matt Hough also finds the movie to be on par with the work of a European cinema giant: “Serene but filled with thought-provoking human interaction and some genuine tension, Spielmann’s Revanche has some . . . sparseness of dialogue and long camera shots that are reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni’s finest work.”

Blu-ray.com is similarly impressed, calling Revanche “truly unique” and “raw.” Meanwhile, DVD File focuses on the film’s surprising and intense narrative twists—“Revanche is that rarest of beasts, a movie that gives viewers exactly what they want in ways they never would have expected”—and calls it “solid-gold” and a “pressure cooker of a film,” an evaluation seconded by Hollywood Elsewhere’s Moises Chiullan, who exclaims, “The movie commands one’s attention unlike most films of the last few years.”