In a rare move, the high end art-house film distributor Janus films and its sister company Criterion (which is home to the gold-standard of DVD releases, The Criterion Collection) have purchased the North American rights to the Goetz Spielmann film, “Revanche.” Janus will release the film theatrically in March followed by a Criterion DVD release. This is highly unusual since Janus has not held first run rights to a film in over 30 years.
Janus head Peter Becker saw the film at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival and began soon after in his attempt to acquire the rights from Speilman. “It was a completely unusual gesture because acquiring first run films is not something we’re going to be doing on an ongoing basis.” Since Janus broke all of its usual conventions to get its hands in this thing, should we also consider it a strong candidate in the Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards? It certainly can’t be a bad sign, and we are definitely going to be keeping an eye on it as awards time gets closer.
What’s it about? Here’s the synopsis from TIFF.
Desperately in love, Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrainian prostitute, and Alex (Johannes Krisch), her boss’s errand boy, must not reveal their secret relationship, as employees are not permitted to be romantically involved. In order to escape their red-light-district lives and fulfill their passions, Alex and Tamara devise a plan to rob a bank in a remote village. But the robbery goes wrong, and a police officer (Andreas Lust) pursues their getaway car, resulting in tragedy and bloodshed. This calamity leads Alex to take refuge at his grandfather’s desolate farm at the edge of the woods. What follows is a harrowing chain of events that radically alters the lives of everyone involved in the botched robbery.To prepare for their demanding roles, the actors spent days undercover in and around seedy brothels and police stations, learning to become their characters with selfassurance and genuine authenticity. The film’s visual plan boasts similar precision, a distinct rhythm and style both to its characters and to the depiction of nature. There is a piercing clarity to Revanche, which allows Spielmann to draw his audience through the narrative, into difficult moral terrain and, finally, toward larger existential questions.
We’re sold.