Great Freedom review – powerful gay​​ prison drama​ ​set postwar Germany | Drama films | The Guardian

Contents:

• GREAT FREEDOM REVIEW – FORMIDABLY TELLIGENT GAY PRISON DRAMA THAT FDS LIBERTY SI
• REVIEW: A PERSECUTED GAY MAN FDS TE LIBERATN BETIFULLY BTERSWEET ‘GREAT FREEDOM’
• GREAT FREEDOM REVIEW – POWERFUL GAY​​ PRISON DRAMA​ ​SET POSTWAR GERMANY
• ‘ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE NAZIS’: THE FILM ABOUT GERMANY’S POSTWAR PERSECUTN OF GAY MEN
• IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY

GREAT FREEDOM REVIEW – FORMIDABLY TELLIGENT GAY PRISON DRAMA THAT FDS LIBERTY SI

Grosse Freihe (Great Freedom) is the name of the Fassbr-ish gay bar this film wh a dungeon-style sex club beneath: director and -wrer Sebastian Meise leav to to gge the exact level of irony his tle.

It is 1969, jt after the Wt German ernment has crimalised gay sex. Perhaps he se their remblance to prison, whose terrs themselv remble the public lavatori where Hans broke the law, that prison to which lifer Hans had an stutnalised loyalty, part of the lost generatns of gay men whose entire liv were potlsly Freedom is a formidably telligent and well-acted prison movie and also a love story – or perhaps a paradoxilly platonic bromance, stretchg om the end of the send world war to the moon landg.

In the 60s, Hans has a prison moment wh Leo (Anton von Lucke), the young teacher arrted wh him the toilet, and for whom Hans mak a self-sacrificial gture to secure his ’s real relatnship is wh his cellmate, a stolid straight man lled Viktor (Ge Friedrich), like Hans a recidivist veteran of the system who is ially overwhelmed wh homophobic disgt at Hans, but then feels passn on seeg his tattoo. It refully weav imagery that would not be out of place a novel to the story of Germany's csant persecutn of homosexual men, which only stopped when the hated paragraph 175 of the German Penal Co was reformed film ns on three time l, the three s durg which the central character, Hans Hoffman, fds himself jail for pursug his sir. Gibson has a long history of makg racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and anti-Semic ments, which has led mentators to ll his support of Sound of Freedom a tellg endorsement of the movie's polics.

REVIEW: A PERSECUTED GAY MAN FDS TE LIBERATN BETIFULLY BTERSWEET ‘GREAT FREEDOM’

Atrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise’s tickg clock of a drama — regrettably missg om the Osr nome this year for ternatnal feature — crisscross the repeated imprisonments of a gay German man played by Franz Rogowski between the end of World War II and the emergence of a new gay outspokenns the late ’60s. In that span of time, to be homosexual was to still feel shackled to the persecutn nightmare of Hler’s reign, bee while the German penal provisn that jailed gay men — Paragraph 175 — was passed 1871, and saw s most btal prosecutn durg the Nazi years, stayed on the books for s after the ’s 1968 when we meet Hans (Rogowski), who looks unfazed at beg tried and sentenced for havg sex wh men. When his cell door is opened to reveal an Amerin soldier, we learn that Hans is not gog ee, however, but rather beg sent to a jail to serve out the rt of his Paragraph 175 shockg realy for gay men om the mps — that the Allied liberatn did not clu them — is what spurred Meise and -screenwrer Thomas Reir to wre “Great Freedom.

One of the film’s arcs is how he slowly breaks down Viktor’s homophobia over the years — a gentle mpaign of rg that go back to their meetg as cellmat 1945 and that Friedrich’s portrayal match steels and vulnerabily. And Franz Rogowski’s remarkable, ntaed performance as Hans Hoffman, a gay man who spends much of his life prison, persecuted for his sexualy acrdance wh paragraph 175 of the German penal ceas to have the same meang behd bars, but thanks to a strikg physil transformatn, Rogowski guis through a nonlear storyle spanng 1945 – Hans is released om a ncentratn mp only to be imprisoned immediately for the crime of his homosexualy – to 1969 and the repeal of paragraph 175.

GREAT FREEDOM REVIEW – POWERFUL GAY​​ PRISON DRAMA​ ​SET POSTWAR GERMANY

But as the award-wng new film Great Freedom mak clear, was fact a vdictive article of the German penal that crimalised male homosexualy and blighted the liv of 140, 000 men, more than a third of whom received prison sentenc.

‘ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE NAZIS’: THE FILM ABOUT GERMANY’S POSTWAR PERSECUTN OF GAY MEN

” A “pk list” of known gay men, which the Nazis had piled, was still circulatn by the late 1970s, Meise says. Trends may change but homophobia never falls out of fashn.

“We approached some of them a gay fe Vienna. “There are laws parts of the US which are siar to sectn 28 the UK, where you n’t talk about homosexualy schools.

IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY

Hans (Franz Rogowski) has been found guilty of somethg the ernment ems a crime: he is gay.

Unr the 19th-century German penal known as Paragraph 175, homosexualy is grounds for imprisonment, and Hans--over the urse of multiple s--is spied on and repeatedly jailed solely for his sexualy. Hans is repeatedly imprisoned unr Paragraph 175, which crimaliz homosexualy. Anyone faiar wh Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s powerful 2000 documentary feature, Paragraph 175, will regnize that tle as the provisn of the German penal that sanctned horrific Nazi persecutn of homosexuals, a law datg back to 1871.

The openg is an stant attentn-grabber, showg men cisg a public rtroom for sex — “ttagg, ” gay parlance — as a hidn mera ptur their furtive enunters. That mak homophobic Viktor ially hostile 1945, kickg Hans out and mandg that the guards place him elsewhere. There’s bter irony Hans’ ia that they should flee after their release to East Germany, where unlike the supposedly mocratic Wt, gay men are not locked up for nsensual sex.