MPAA Rating:� n/a
(NC-17)
Distributor and Production Company:
Director; Writer: based on play by Martin Sherman
Relevance to doaskdotell site:
Nazism and gays
Review:
This film as a screen adaptation of Martin Sherman's 1979
play (published by Avon) about the Nazi treatment of two homosexuals during the
Holocaust. Indeed, "bent" is an antonym for "straight."
This is not exactly on the scale of Schindler's List. The
film looks a bit like a videotape of a play, even in the early cabaret scenes,
when the two lovers are hunted down by storm troopers who have learned of their
relationship by rumor. Later on, one of the young men dies, but the other
(played by Clive Owen) tries to pretend to be Jewish instead of gay and wear
the star rather than the pink triangle, but then he falls in love with another
prisoner. Toward the end, Max and Horst are assigned to a work detail moving
rocks and are not allowed to look at one another, but they engage in
conversation resembling phone sex. One scene that does take advantage of film
occurs when, during their initial moments of incarceration, not only are their
heads shaved, but their chest hair is sheared or rather lopped off on-camera.
There are some other moments of real brutality, such as in
the box car when one of the gay characters is kicked for wanting to come to the
aid of another prisoner. The ending, where one is shot and the other
electrocutes himself on a fence, is relatively predictable.
The film and play take on a new importance for me inasmuch as disturbing, if questionable, material about the involvement of gays in the Nazi movement in the 1930s in Germany has recently been presented.