The Invincibles

For almost 25 years, ‘Die Sieger’ was both a thwarted and unrecognised
masterpiece. The interventions of the producers and distributors did not destroy
Dominik Graf‘s vision in 1994, but at least damaged it. Even then, however, anyone who wanted to could see that this police film and conspiracy thriller about a
Düsseldorf SWAT unit, and some powerful politicians acting in the background,
was a great, truly unique achievement in German cinema. There is something
breathtaking about the way Graf utilises genre conventions and at the same time
leaves them far behind. Compared to ‘Die Katze’, this extremely concentrated,
almost minimalist genre study, ‘Die Sieger’ seems almost baroque, especially
in the ‘director‘s cut’ version that was finally released in 2019. Again and again,
Graf takes the time and space needed to bust open this story of obsession and
betrayal, cover-ups and corruption, sometimes through images that create a
ghostly atmosphere, sometimes through scenes that explore the abysses of the
SWAT men. From a portrait of a group of inwardly broken men, permeated by
violence and paranoia, the film becomes a panorama of an entire society that
has lost itself and its way