A Polish prostitute, Tamara (Irina Potapenko), languishes in an Austrian brothel, where the owner is trying to persuade her to work from her own flat and with a higher class of clientele. Meanwhile, her boyfriend (Johannes Krisch), who wants to buy a place in Ibiza, takes her along to rob a bank.
A policeman shoots the getaway car and tragedy ensues. Devastated, the boyfriend hides out at his old father’s farm, his life in ruins. Unknowingly, he has a liaison with the frustrated wife of the policeman who fired the shot.
You can view the film either as a European film noir or as a social realist study of a class structure that contrasts the working-class prostitute’s lover with the bourgeois policeman and his wife. Either way, Gotz Speilmann’s film is well-made, aptly characterised and seems frighteningly true to life. Nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film last year.
Revanche
Cert: 15
