Revanche

Revanche alters the noir-trappings of a failed heist plot into a meditation on love, guilt, revenge and family, elevating itself to a Greek tragedy but ultimately distills various tensions of existential struggle and relaxes them. Our hero's attempt to save his girl from a brothel owner and to gain himself a fortune goes bad. He gets the money but loses something more dear, or so he realizes later. He sets out for revenge. Director uses this simple context to beautifully examine human motivation, fate and purpose, but also to find understanding between his few acutely detailed characters, and what I may call, a tranquil redemption, not a zero-sum game. At the end, we know nothing is solved but we also know, without fanfare, that there are some nobler human traits which make this world possible.