‘On the same level as the Nazis’: the film about Germany’s postwar persecutn of gay men | Film | The Guardian

Contents:

• GREAT FREEDOM REVIEW – FORMIDABLY TELLIGENT GAY PRISON DRAMA THAT FDS LIBERTY SI
• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY
• 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
• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ FILM REVIEW: DES-SPANNG DRAMA EXPLOR INJTICE OF GERMAN ANTI-GAY LAWS
• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ REVIEW: FRANZ ROGOWSKI STUNS A SUBDUED BUT POWERFUL GAY PRISON DRAMA
• 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.

‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY

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. He’s Barbie’s gay bt iend.Dpe Mattel’s sistence that Barbie and Ken are a happy romantic relatnship, there’s plenty of speculatn about Ken’s sexualy. The film won’t say , but a post-creds punchle about Ken’s handwrg, plete wh hearts and stars surroundg his name, tells what we need to know.The heavily implied nature of Ken’s gayns Toy Story 3 harkens back to Hollywood’s tradnal gay bt iend-type characters.

In the Hays Co era, explic referenc to homosexualy weren’t allowed, so characters like Van Buren (Frankl Pangborn) 1937’s Easy Livg, Kip (David Wayne) 1949’s Adam’s Rib, or Addison (Gee Sanrs) 1950’s All About Eve stead were imbued wh effemate characteristics, offerg a glimpse outsi of heteronormativy whout explicly beg queer.None of the characters were the same—some were tty, others sweet. But each of the gay bt iends was trsilly fed by their relatnships wh their straight iends. Des later, 2010, the gay bt iend was all the rage; Teen Vogue even went so far as to proclaim the GBF as the summer’s mt-have accsory.

But unlike the first half of the 20th century, today’s cema, the GBF is allowed to be openly gay. In movi like Mean Girls (2004), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Easy A (2010), No Strgs Attached (2011), and Isn’t It Romantic (2019), gay iends exist entirely the orb of their female iends.

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

“No one!” But Barbie do, and for Ken, that’s life-changg.There are plenty of reasons why the film wouldn’t outrightly state that Ken is homosexual. This versn of the doll had bleached blon hair, a purple leather vt (!), a pk-purple mh top (!!), and of urse, and earrg the “gay ear”. But that’s not all: Around Ken’s neck was somethg that any active participant of the queer scene the ’90s regnized stantly—a ck rg (!!!).The Earrg Magic Ken turned Barbie’s boyiend to an out-and-proud homosexual raver.

Mattel, of urse, vehemently nied any claims that Ken was gay, let alone that he had somethg as prepostero as a ck rg around his neck. As a rult, gay men bought the doll drov, and spe Mattel ultimately rellg the doll and wipg away any trace of Earrg Magic Ken, was near-impossible to see Ken as anythg but the glor homosexual he was born to be om then on. Though Mattel don’t seem to be willg to say Ken is actually gay, the Ken dolls of recent years seem to really lean to Ken’s queerns.

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

While there is no way to “drs gay,” there are several dolls that seem to suggt otherwise, such as:Fashnista Ken #193, who looks very exced to tell you about his new obssn, Troye Sivan;Travel Ken Doll, who has a satchel perfect for bathho and a purple overnight bag that lerally proclaims he’s “extra;”Ken Looks Doll, servg “I’m gonna give you a makeover”-type realns while sportg black pleather pants;This Ken, who wears the least heterosexual double nim imagable.While I have a feelg the new Barbie movie will put the work to nvce that Ken is a hetero du who lov nothg life more than Barbie herself, the wrg’s already on the wall: Ken is, and always will be, Barbie’s gay bt iend.Keep obssg!

” Victor (Ge Friedrich) stammers disbelief, more to himself than to Hans (Franz Rogowski) fictnal character of Hans, liberated om a Nazi ncentratn mp at the end of World War II only to be sent directly to prison, is based on a chillg and often overlooked chapter German postwar is repeatedly arrted unr Paragraph 175, a law crimalizg sex between men that the Nazis expand jt a uple of years to their regime, and which was kept on the books for s law was ed, sometim wh elaborate stg operatns, to nvict up to 50, 000 gay men Wt Germany between 1945 and 1994 — roughly as many as were arrted durg the which the Nazis ed . “For gay men, the Nazi era did not end 1945, ” said Peter Rehberg, the archivist of Schwul Mm, a gay cultural stutn Sebastian Meise, the director of “Great Freedom, ” read about the men who went om the ncentratn mps to prison bee of their sexualy, “really changed my unrstandg of history, ” he said a telephone terview om Vienna.

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

But for many s, postwar Germany’s treatment of gay men was also neher liberal nor 1935, the Nazis strengthened Germany’s law crimalizg homosexualy, which was origally troduced the 1870s. This allowed the regime to crimalize not jt gay sex, but almost any behavr that uld be seen to n afoul of heterosexual norms, cludg lookg at another man. Bermbach spent four weeks jail and was fed 5, 000 marks — a hefty sum at the he paid off the fe, he beme one of the thoands of gay and bisexual men who fled Paragraph 175.

He moved to Paris 1960 search of more and his wrg partner Thomas Reir llected many stori om Bermbach’s generatn of gay men durg the six years they spent rearchg and wrg the script for “Great Freedom, ” visg the archiv at the Schwul Mm and the Magn Hirschfeld Foundatn, which llects terviews wh men affected by the, Paragraph 175 did not stop gay culture om evolvg Wtern Germany; the German tle of the film, “Grosse Freihe, ” is a nod to a venerable gay bar Berl where the penultimate scene tak place. But did ph many aspects of gay life unrground, acrdg to Kls Schumann, 84. He remembered Berl police pullg up large vans ont of bars known to be gay hot spots the late ’40s and ’50s.

“As for beg nounced for beg homosexual, I’ve long fotten about that. A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn C, Page 3 of the New York edn wh the headle: The Long Shadow of Germany’s Anti-Gay Law. 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.

‘GREAT FREEDOM’ FILM REVIEW: DES-SPANNG DRAMA EXPLOR INJTICE OF GERMAN ANTI-GAY LAWS

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. 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.

‘GREAT FREEDOM’ REVIEW: FRANZ ROGOWSKI STUNS A SUBDUED BUT POWERFUL GAY PRISON DRAMA

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.

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

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.

The way that each of them reacts to the prospect of eedom — or Hans’ se the realy, explored the labyrthe unrground sex chambers of a gay jazz club — is quietly affectg. In "Great Freedom, " Rogowski stars as Hans, a gay Jewish man sentenced to Atrian prison after World War II for vlatg anti-homosexualy laws.

Sentenced for vlatg Paragraph 175, which forba the exprsn of homosexual sire, he's sent to prison, and the movie tak s time revealg that throughout the urse of his life, he would keep returng there, beg unable to reprs who he is.