DANCES WITH FILMS NY 2026 FILM REVIEW! Director/writer Dominik Sedlar’s WWII drama Vindicta follows Hannah (Devon Ross), a young Jewish woman whose parents are killed in front of her by a Nazi soldier. Sedlar pulls no punches in this opening salvo, drawing out the cruel game, with the soldier clearly set on killing the family in their own home. When Hannah shows no emotion after he murders her parents, it impresses him long enough for her to take advantage of his hesitation and kill him with a blade hidden in her hair.
She shows a core of steel, channeling her rage into action, becoming a seductive assassin. She kills Nazi’s without mercy or regard for her own safety. Her vengeance drives her, but the satisfaction quickly fades, and she seeks out more of them to dispatch. Her thirst for Nazi blood is never sated.
By accident one evening, coming back from her latest kill, Hannah encounters a young Nazi officer named Klaus (Jack Bandeira), who is immediately besotted with her beauty and ice-cold demeanor. He pursues her, and she leads him on, looking for her moment.
When he invites her to his palatial apartment,t she agrees to go. There, he offers to protect her if she comes to Berlin with him. As the son of a highly placed military official, he believes this is possible. She is oddly drawn to him. He is more intelligent and self-aware than other soldiers she’s met (and killed). She finds him interesting in the way that a predator would regard a particularly clever prey animal. Her intent doesn’t change, but she is fascinated.
“… Hannah channels her rage into action, becoming a seductive assassin of Nazis …”
He is facing a dilemma. Hannah is unique, but he knows she’s a Jew, and by the tenets of his ideology, must be inferior. Yet, he sees that she is not. His plan to bring her to Berlin as a kind of pet is flawed, but he is obsessed with her. His frustration builds into violence, as their game goes to the next level.
The psychodrama between Hannah and Klaus is the centerpiece of the film. Ross and Bandeira deliver extraordinary performances, keeping the tension high. Ross has a powerful screen presence. At the tender age of 25, she’s already an accomplished fashion model, poet, musician, and actress. She carries herself with effortless confidence. The film is beautifully shot and edited. Sedlar fashioned a gorgeous, warm tapestry of firelight and blood.
When I saw The Pianist in 2002, I had a visceral reaction to the Nazi violence and decided I’d had my fill of Holocaust films. Then came X-Men, with a brutal opening scene of young Erik (later Magneto) being separated from his parents and dragged into Auschwitz. More films followed: Everything is Illuminated and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; they kept coming, too many to name. I had to admit I was wrong to think we’d covered the topic. There are still stories we need to hear. Clearly, the demons persist. Of course, we know there are new fascist demons headed our way at a trot, so it’s all freshly relevant.
I love Inglourious Basterds. The revenge fantasy is one way to dispel those demons, at least for a short time, and Tarantino evokes that rage in fine style. Vindicta strikes the same resonant chords of vengeance. Hannah is the Aldo Raine of this joint, except she’s smoother, and as a seductress, she’s every bit as effective as Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, but she doesn’t need a Louisville slugger. Her commitment to the mission isn’t time-bound, as we see late in the film. While Vindicta tells a dramatized story, the notion is not fabricated: there were young women operatives who seduced and killed Nazis.
While revisiting the holocaust re-opens old wounds, that pain may be enough to stop us forgetting, and make us watchful about fascism rising again. Vindicta cuts open those scars and pours salt on them, but then delivers sublime catharsis. Sedlar shows us one way to fight. We may yet have need of people like Hannah to stand up and push back.
Learn more at the official Vindicta website. Vindicta screened at the 2026 Dances with Films New York.
"…a gorgeous, warm tapestry of firelight and blood."
