Also published on Cinescene.

ANDREAS LUST IN THE ROBBER

What's the rush?

Austrian director Benjamin Heisenberg's sophomore effort The Robber (Der Räuber, 90 min.) is the taut, minimal, intentionally fun-free story of an ex-con from a good family whose endorphin/adrenalin addiction has led him to be both a champion marathoner and a guy who robs bank for a hobby. Far-fetched? Maybe, but it's based on actual events.

Andreas Lust gives a committed and convincing performance as the runner/robber. Essential to the commitment is that he looks the part -- and during the shooting was in serious running shape. (The source novel author and screenplay co-writer Martin Prinz, who once ran a race with the real runner-bank robber, was Lust's trainer.) Long distance running isn't something you can fake. Though the film may be five minutes or so longer than it needs to be, there's no excess fat on Lust's body or slackness in his muscles. And the film itself is seriously well constructed, as lean in its cool existential minimalism as its main character.

This is a protagonist who's a rather unique combination. The logic that unifies his personality is his essential solitude. As Dr. George Sheehan memorably argued in Running and Being and other books, the distance runner, and for that matter the endurance athlete, is not primarily a social being. He resolves his issues with people by putting a lot of space between himself and them out on the roads and hills. The long hours of training appeal to one who prefers to be alone. But the aloneness of Johann Rettenberger (Lust) is greater than that. The preoccupations and goals of the ordinary world mean nothing to him. Not to mention the laws.

Appropriately, because he lives locked inside a small world in his own mind, the film begins when Rettenberger is in prison finishing a six-year sentence for bank robbery. In the yard, he doesn't socialize. He runs around it, racking up mileage in circles. He has managed to get a running treadmill installed in his little cell, and he continues the workouts there. He's an obsessively well-trained, driven, and talented long distance runner. If fact he's so good, he comes from behind to beat all the favorites and win the Vienna Marathon a short time after he's been released from prison. Ironically, he has gone from his prison cell to a tiny hotel room that for his purposes is less useful and perhaps no more appealing. Where is the freedom?

There are only two people in Rettenberger's life; he has not connected with his family upon release. There is the parole officer, Bewährungsbeamter (Markus Schleinzer), whom he's met with before release and to whom he has pointedly made no promises. He says only that he'll be glad not to run in circles any more. The parole officer wants him to avoid coming back in. He's supposed to get a job. At an employment office he runs into a former acquaintance from a good family, Erika (the poised, centered Franziska Weisz), who now works there. Johann meets up with Erika later and till he "settles down" she lets him live in a room of her big family apartment, now empty since her immediate relatives have all died; she's isolated too. (A snapshot of the large family now departed becomes a symbol of isolation.) After going to a cinema and watching a violent movie, which greatly amuses her and he watches with sphinx-like approval, they drift into a sexual affair.

Rettenberger has gone back to bank robbing right away. His routine rarely varies. He steels a car, always playing loud music as he drives. He wears a hoodie and a mask (which doesn't look much different from his pale, expressionless face), brandishes a machine gun, fills a duffle bag with cash, drives off, leaves the car in a wood and runs away. He puts the cash in plastic bags and stuffs them under his bad at Erika's place. He's rapidly racking up robberies, faster than he's winning races. The cash, not spectacular but much more than his race winnings, means little to him.

Meanwhile the fussy, well-meaning and dogged parole officer is not pleased. He follows Rettenberger to races and demands that attempts be made to find a job. He gets in return more and more hostility and silence. Rettenberger has little to say. In fact this could largely be a silent movie. It will appeal to those who like being challenged to make an effort; it makes no overtures to the audience whatsoever. Rettenberger is compelling but unappealing as a character.

The link between competitive athletics and bank robbing is an interesting one some may feel the film insufficiently develops. The Variety reviewer comments that Rettenberger seems to get no visible rush from either running or crime. He does smile very broadly once, when he wins the Vienna Marathon. He also carefully monitors his heart-rate in both processes. His effort may grow from some anti-social Nietchiean self-image. As a former marathoner myself, I found the idea of carrying ultimate conditioning into challenges to human as well as natural law intriguing and not impossible, especially if you buy into Dr. Sheehan's mystique of the anti-social distance runner. I was also reminded of Kathryn Bigelow's classic Point Break, with its athletic surfer-bank robbers and their mystical leader nicknamed Bodhi (the late Patrick Swayze). Those looking for conventional crime thriller material here will be sadly disappointed. It's essential to Heisenberg's protagonist that he's not at all a working- or criminal-class person or part of the criminal world but an amateur crook, without the resources of prison networking. Bank robbing as he performs it is an artisanal craft mostly requiring just cojones and speed.

In the end running becomes, of course, running away; and the beauty of The Robber is that it is a metaphor for itself throughout.

Shown at various international festivals beginning with Berlin, where it was nominated for a Golden Bear award, The Robber/Der räuber was seen and reviewed as part of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.