It's difficult to describe the horror that is Johannes Grenzfurthner's latest film Solvent, though perhaps what is most horrifying about the film is that it's actually not that difficult to describe.
It's matter-of-fact really. It's in-your-face. It's absolute balls to the walls. Grenzfurthner's messaging is obvious, perhaps more accessible than he's ever been and that may very well be what makes Solvent the most horrifying film he's ever made.
The Austrian filmmaker has never been one for artistic or narrative compromise. He says what he means and he means what he says. You may find yourself fumbling around Grenzfurthner's imagery, however, there's no mistaking Grenzfurthner's messaging even if you've not happened to catch his cinematic cousins to the film Masking Threshold and Razzennest.
Fresh off its world premiere on September 26th at Slash Film Fest in Austria, Solvent introduces us to Gunner S. Holbrook (Jon Gries, Napoleon Dynamite, The White Lotus), whose expertise in "tracking hidden and potentially fragile goods" has brought him to the Austrian village of Egelsau at the commissioning of Polish academic Krystyna Szczepanska (Aleksandra Cwen) to search the abandoned farmhouse of former high-ranking Nazi official Wolfgang Zinggl. The mission, if you will, is to discover the location of mass graves. What they find, how they find it, and the price they pay for finding it are all largely what drives the narrative arc of this film that Grenzfurthner co-wrote alongside Ben Roberts.
Suffice it to say, first of all, that Solvent is both an incredibly dark film and a surprisingly funny one. I laughed early and often throughout Solvent, though it's likely fair to say that at least some of the laughter can be attributed to my own nervous energy and the film's ever-escalating intensity. There have been films, of course, about the search for Nazis and Nazi memorabilia. Few, if any, of these films have ever unfolded with the precision, clarity, jaw-dropping insight, and raw emotional energy of Solvent.
The fact that Solvent has made its world premiere within the same month as Austria's most recent national election that granted a disturbing rise in power to the far-right FPO only amplifies Grenzfurthner's storytelling and impossible to forget imagery for the film.
Solvent centers around Holbrook's inability to separate himself from his escalating hunt for Nazi documents and the shape-shifting ways in which this spiraling search triggers a descent into paralyzing madness from which he may not be able to escape. To deny a connection to Austria's own inability to deal with its own cultural PTSD is undeniable, an inability that has, it would seem, led it toward its currently traveling down a familiar, terrifying past that seems to be becoming present once again.
It's worth noting up front that Gries is mesmerizing here as the American expat who may pay for his obssessive search for evil with his sanity and his being. For a good majority of Solvent, our view is Holbrook's view as Grenzfurthner masterfully weaves together a traumatic tapestry of body horror, found footage, and cultural criticism. If you're like me, you'll likely find yourself exhausted by the time you've finished watching Solvent. If you're like me, you'll also find yourself wanting to watch it all over again even before the closing credits have scrolled by.
Along with Gries's tremendous work here, one must mention a profoundly engaging Aleksandra Cwen as Krystyna. Cwen's is a performance of both intimate and universal ache, both strength and vulnerability dancing alongside one another along with a rawness that is absolutely hypnotizing.
Grenzfurthner himself also impresses as Ernst Bartholdi, whose presence here is best left undescribed yet is an essential bridge to everyone and everything that unfolds here. Grenzfurthner, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person not long ago, possesses an intellectual cheekiness and a glorious willingness to lay himself bare to get his point across. Grenzfurthner's Ernest has many of the film's most extreme dark laughs alongside Roland Gratzer's equally disturbing and funny Fredi.
Truthfully, the entire ensemble here is spot-on perfectly cast.
Solvent is, one must say again, a rather exhausting film with Florian Hofer's lensing inspired and intimate, uncomfortable and, at times, even overwhelming. It's honestly rather stunning work that amplifies both the trauma of this search and the spiraling madness of the man who becomes consumed by it. Pieter de Graaf's original music for the film is similarly immersive. If trauma has a rhythm, Pieter de Graaf may very well have created it.
It feels weird to say that I absolutely loved Solvent, though given my own complex and traumatic history with love it may very well be appropriate. While there is an abundance of dark, pitch black humor to be found in Solvent, rest assured that this is not a film going for laughs nor is it a film making light of its subject matter. Instead, I'd dare imagine, Grenzfurthner seems to understand the intensity of this storytelling and he finds a way to make it accessible while demanding that we keep watching the horrors and dealing with them lest we repeat them. Grenzfurthner understands the tapestry of humanity, the inherent presence of both good and evil and the ways in which our humanity will repeatedly fuck up and choose evil because it feels more familiar and, in a twisted way, a little more safe.
Then, it all begins again.
Solvent isn't an easy film to watch and it's sure not for the timid, however, for those who prefer their cinema uncompromising and with integrity galore there may not be a more must-see film in 2024.
Solvent continues on the indie film festival circuit and is one to watch if it arrives at a festival near you.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
