Revanche had its North American premiere here at Telluride 2008 and was far and away one of the most exciting new films playing. It’s a revenge thriller with cinema purist sensibilities from acclaimed Austrian director, Götz Spielmann. Keeping its German title, Revanche, the word carries two meanings: Revenge, but also a kind of second chance.

In the Austrian countryside, Robert and Susanne (Andreas Lust and Ursula Strauss) have built a cozy house and are trying to start a family. He’s as a rural cop, she works at the local grocery and on Sundays she takes her elderly, widowed neighbor to church. In the red light district of Vienna, Alex (Johannes Krisch) is the errand boy for a pimp and has started an amorous–and very secret–relationship with one of his prostitutes, Tamara (Irina Potapenko). When the desperation of escaping Vienna kicks in for Alex and Tamara, it looks as if Revanche is heading into familiar genre territory: Alex plans a bank job out in the country (”What can go wrong?”), it goes wrong and Tamara is killed in the getaway by a cop, Robert. But it’s when Alex goes to hide out on his grandfather’s farm and realizes the cop who killed his girlfriend lives next door, the movie screeches like a getaway car into unexpected territory.

With an excuse that his mother told him to chop all the wood for winter, Alex arrives at his grandfather’s farm. The wood pile is enormous, creating a sisyphean task. What follows are long takes of Alex in a self-imposed labor camp, cutting log after log to regulate the overwhelming grief and violence wanting to come out of him. The quiet little countryside becomes a cauldron, lit by the death of a Russian prostitute, where all four characters will be melted down to reveal what they’re made of.

Johannes Krisch’s physicality alone is brooding and boyish, volatile and seductive, giving us the space to fear and like him. In an interesting sidenote, Spielmann mentioned in the Q&A afterward that people don’t feel at home in their skin when concentrating on what their saying. So, he and the actors rehearsed until what they said was no longer important, then their bodies began to do the acting. Spielmann also doesn’t use music, but the sound of the buzz saw and animal cries in the woods are more ominous than any music. He doesn’t give any easy answers away and we’re left wondering about the choices his characters make long after the movie ends. A typical revenge plot is fueled by the hero’s obsession, but Revanche has a different kind of energy, fueled by the collison of four obsessions. It’s a fascinating watch and by veering from the beats of a typical revenge plot with Revanche, Spielmann elevates the genre to a new level.