Bent
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Movie Reviews of Bent
Movie Review: A compelling recounting of the Holocaust from another angle
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is definitely not for the faint-hearted, nor those who choose to see human beings as "good or bad" and situations as "black or white." The main character, Max, is a bit of a rotter at the start of the piece, played with an unapologetic grin by Clive Owen (the grin gradually fades and fractures). The film opens by cross-cutting between the morning after one hell of a night before, during which Max hung out with his wild friends in an orgiastic melee that included dancers of both (and some questionable) sexes, Mick Jagger as Greta, a singer who hangs over the group in a circular sit-down trapeze as she sings, cocaine-snorting storm troopers (costumed and genuine), and Max now waking to find a strange, lovely boy in his bed (the excellent Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of "Black Hawk Down" and "Wimbledon"), and his enraged live-in lover screaming at him. In the confusion of "what the hell happened last night--I don't remember", they are interrupted by Storm Troopers who slit the throat of this lovely one-night stand while Max and his lover run for their lives to Greta, who dresses them as respectable men, burns her wardrobes, and sends them on to get to safety as best they can. As this night obviously represents Max's usual M.O., his shallow self-interest is believable enough that much later, in Dachau, we watch him gentled by the first love of his life, Horst (played with quiet self-confidence by Lothaire Bluteau) with as much surprise and joy as Max himself seems to experience.
After Max's headlong flight to his gay but closeted Uncle, played by Ian McKellen in a small but pivotal role, ends in failure to get papers for his lover as well as himself, the two hide out in the Black Forest of Germany, then end up captured on a train ride to hell, during which the boy is beaten to death and thrown off the train, and Max's psyche disintegrates into chaos as he tries to deny the reality of his new life and its morally repugnant choices--when it comes down to his life or his lover's, he chooses his own, following the Nazi guard's unspeakable order (the guard is played with cool, scary detachment by the impeccable Rupert Graves), and then follows this by another act (that must be left to the viewer to hear about to believe). By this time, his self-loathing has reached a level that is so unbearable, he makes yet another choice to try to survive that will somehow, in his own mind, make acceptable what he's just done.
He chooses to debark the train in disguise as a Jew, rather than as the doubly ostracized, pink triangle-d homosexual. Max's deceit is quickly understood to be desperate but bone-deep, not merely a ploy. Max cannot be honest with himself about any aspect of his own character--despite the fact that he's constantly calling himself "a terrible person," his arrogant narcissism is obvious, as is his constant belief in his ability to "make deals" which will guarantee his survival. Only as his relationship with Horst develops does he begin to show signs of character. Earlier in the film, he has taken his young dancer partner under his wing and though resentful, has not abandoned him, a glimpse of what Max can become, but he hasn't behaved with much honor so far. This renouncement of his identity as a "fluffer" (his uncle's word) is his final selfish act. After this, Horst's influence begins to take hold and love enters his life, probably for the first time. As the two of them move rocks from one pile to another, only to move the same pile back to its original spot over and over again, their separation from the rest of the inmates of Dachau allows them to develop the sort of intimacy that Max has never even tried to seek in the midst of his previously hedonistic Berlin life. (I like, too, that their story stays isolated and doesn't get lost in expensive set-dressing that tries to re-create all of Dachau. The location appears to be an industrial site, and this separation keeps the focus appropriately narrow.)
I like Mick Jagger as the cross-dressing chanteuse of the group's nighttime rubble "Nightclub" and love that serious actors like Jude Law and Rachel Weisz show up for momentary bits that you'll miss if you blink, and that Ian McKellen took this small role as Max's uncle. Later, the always-great Paul Bettany shows up as another casually sadistic Nazi guard and brings about the film's denoument. This comradarie reminded me of "And the Band Played On..." where everyone pitched in to get the project made and to give it weight through their presence. It's an important story, and one which reminds us that the chant really shouldn't be "6 million dead," but rather and with all respect, "10 million dead," which is the estimated count when one adds the additional 4 million gay men and women, Catholics, political dissidents, Poles, Germans who wouldn't go along with the Reich or who were merely "intellectuals", French Resistance fighters (those who weren't shot), actual criminals (though who knows what that word meant during the Reich?) and miscellaneous "undesirables" who were not Jewish, but who suffered and died, too. And it's a good history lesson to see how homosexuals claimed the infamous upside-down pink triangle, turned it point up, and began to wear it with pride rather than shame--a wonderful example of the reclamation of self. In point of fact, Hitler's swastika was an ancient, universal "walking star" or "walking circle", a symbol that existed in Neolithic Europe as well as amongst Native Americans, as a symbol of transformation and growth. We Indians here have tried to reclaim it, as it was a powerful healing symbol, but it's hard to wear a bracelet with that sign on it, no matter what its history. But this is the reason Hitler chose it--it had a legacy of powerful change, and he stole it, as he stole other symbols of mystical power.
The love-making scene between Max and Horst is beautifully acted, especially by Bluteau, and its subtlety was a masterstroke of writing--it is more emotionally deep than any "sex" scene could have been. It is a profound statement of the power of love and the assertion that love-making occurs in the mind as much as in the body. It feels, too, that this may have been the first time Max actually made love, rather than had sex, and it is moving and beautiful. By now Max has begun to change, and his capacity for unselfish love blossoms, ironically in the worst place on Earth--quite a wonderful bit of writing.
The one problem with the film is the score. Phillip Glass' shallow, repetitive, irritatingly New Age-y music is, if you can imagine, more annoying than the idea of moving rocks back and forth. Only the final solo is beautiful and up to the standard of the rest of the film. His music is like Michael Nyman's--it either works beautifully or is a disaster, and I found it disastrous in this case. The musical cues are also abrupt and distracting, and in such a moody film, the last thing one wants is to be jarred out of a reverie.
The heart-breaking but defining, self-affirming ending is often called a "downer" but I found it to be the opposite. To finally take his identity and his destiny into his own hands was Max's only way to truly "survive" both his loss and the camp--as Horst says earlier, such an act drives the Nazis crazy because it is self-willed, and their deepest goal was to destroy the will, not merely the life, of each camp inmate. Max's act is an escape beyond capture, and ultimately, his truest human act.
Movie Review: BENT - A DVD I LOVED MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY! WORTH BUYING BIG TIME!
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved Bent the DVD version because it was awesome. Bent's moves slowly at points but it is to good use as it is an interval to think. Bent is a DVD that gives its audience A LOT in substance and meaning to think about at all points.
My only problem with BENT is that it sanitized the experience of the train ride to the camps. I have been blessed to talk to a few camp survivors in my lifetime and from what they told me NO train car would have ever been allowed to have so few people in it. From what I was told train cars going to the camps were always filled to overflowing such that the humans therein had to fight to breathe and many did not win that battle to get their required supply of vital oxygen. The NAZI murder machine was nothing if not horrifically and brutally efficient. I do not doubt for a moment NAZI monster guards indulged their most saddistic banal and inhumane passions both subtle and gross on its passengers in manners shown in the movie but the scenes in that almost empty cattle car just could not have happened. NAZI's had human cargo quotas to fill and kept indepth records insuring every millimeter of space in that car would have been used for the most inhumane packing of human beings for mass transport.
My other slight beef with the movie is that it humanized the NAZI officers in this film way too much. Maybe a few NAZI's required the forced civility of saying sir, no sir, yes sir but most NAZI's allowed themselves to de-evolve to a status of inhumane brute. There was little civility from NAZI guards to camp inmates. To call a camp inmate sir coffered too much residual core humanity on the camp inmate when the thrust of all NAZI training at the camps was to de-emphasize any aspect of humanity shared with camp inmates in every way with every NAZI officers words actions and utterances.
No movie no matter how great its direction or budget can accurately define for people who did not live through it the true abject horror of daily life in the concentration camps for inmates. There was never enough food to go around such that their were often fights for food among the inmates with some people being killed for stale bread. Another thing that irked me about this movie was that it had a concentration camp inmate doing push ups. From what my survivor friends told me when an inmate did not have to exert energy in the service of MONSTER NAZI captors they lay still as possible to conserve precious energy and certainly did not waste energy doing push ups.
I know some people got more food than others because the systems were totally for sale so it is a stretch but maybe some inmates got more food so he had more energy. Even if I suspended truth to accept a camp inmate was doing push ups in a concentration camp the movie extends the same theme showing something I just know could not have happened in reality. A Camp inmate doing push ups while in the close presence of a NAZI Guard Monster, thus betraying that he is well fed and seeking to get stronger when his service does not serve NAZI War Goals, I am sorry I can't beleive that could ever happen.
In the camps the most inhumane well throught out oppression was job one for the Monster NAZI guards and survival was job one for the innocent inmates. Any camp inmate obviously trying to build himself up physically mentally or in any other way was both a real threat and an insult to NAZI monsters who fancied themselves "the master race". My real problem with this movie is not the story because, that was nice, well acted and all. My problem with the movie is it so humanized both the unimaginably horrific evil vile NAZI monsters and the perfectly inhumane Concentration Camp experience as to make easier the jobs of racist revisionist history writers who want to down play the holocaust or worse suggest it never happened.
Maybe I am wrong but, I do not feel Monster NAZI's or the horrible concentration camps should be made to appear one bit more humane or civil than they were in truth and this movie does just that. I think the ugliness of the camps should be shown in their completely ugly graphic reality or that part of the experience should not be shown. If human kind is to learn lessons they never forget we can not start watering down the true horrific nature of the very events that all good people work each day to assure never happen again anywhere.
I gave the movie three stars because while it in no true way shares the nasty profound abiding graphic nature and detailed unspeakable horrors that was everyday existance under NAZI monster rule in foul festering fetted concentration camps, it does try and I appluad the effort. This film despite its many flaws tries to insure the world never forgets the NAZI's the camps and all the continuing legacy of evil they left our world. The film is a couragous effort and does have a story to tell that should be heard by all.
Personally I just wish as much film were used to show the Holocaust that occured here in the United States when it enslaved and murdered millions of black people during slavery. I wish this world did not have such a glaring double standard when it came to remembering holocaust's because what was done in the 1930's by Hitler's devotee's while in every way bad has its equal in the United States during times of Slavery and Jim Crow. There was just no need for the NAZI Arm bands and organization when the United States upheld and fostered slavery because the color of one's skin itself was all the NAZI like identification you needed at the time.
Had the world truly learned from the brutality and inhumane ugliness the lessons of Slavery reveled in the United States maybe their would have been no Holocaust in Germany. Anytime the dignity of human life is made cheap anywhere Life by default human life becomes cheap in the minds of people everywhere no matter what its color, religion or sexual identity. Maybe this movie will open some eyes to a greater humanity thats why I gave it four stars for its noble efforts in helping better the world.
Movie Review: The Movie's The Thing...
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first started reading film criticism, while still in my teens, I remember being, at first, surprised that and then understanding of why many critics were wary of films adapted from stage plays. At first blush, film seems to be a logical extension of the stage, but then when you take into account the unique aspects of both genres, you realize that they are, in many ways, worlds apart. Despite the cinema's (ever increasing) ability to create astonishing special effects, it is the more naturalistic of the two genres. A scene that takes place in the great outdoors can be shot in the great outdoors. With the camera focusing in for close-ups, actors don't have to rely on grand gestures or declamatory oration to convey their meaning.The standard term among movie makers and their critics for the changes that have to be made to successfully adapt a stage play to the cinema is "opening it up." You have to get it off the stage and into the world. Sometimes it works, and sometimes they fall flat. But the cinematic beast is hungry for narrative and stage plays (along with novels, short stories, lesser known foreign films, and nowadays old comic strips and TV shows) continue to provide it fodder.
Everything I knew about the play BENT did not make it seem promising for film adaptation. I was wrong. Although I've never seen the stage version, one can almost envision it from watching the film. One can also pretty much guess what changes have been made, where things have been embellished and what cinematic tricks have been thrown in to spice things us. So that makes it pretty transparent, right? And therefore not such a great film.
Well, yes and no. The film doesn't achieve actual greatness, I suppose. But even though it's a bit stagey, perhaps, in some ways, it compensates brilliantly for it in other ways. First off, the cinematography is brilliant and no doubt brings a quite different perspective to the drama. The acting is also top notch. I had never seen Clive Owen in anything before--although judging from the reviews posted here, he has quite a fan base. Deservedly so, I'd say based on his performance he turns in here. His character, Max, makes the transition from callow sensualist to self-sacrificing hero believably--and in relatively few scenes. Equally good is French-Canadian actor, Lothaire Bluteau, as Horst, Max's soul-mate and (platonic?) lover. The scene in which they "make love" without touching is quietly powerful--and emblematic of the differences between the cinema and the stage discussed above. Here the actors work with close-ups and with their voices, they cannot gesture because they're being watched. Whatever the stage actors did in the equivalent scene had to be different--even if it was just as effective. They were denied the close-ups that these two actors take great advantage of.
The true test of a film's power is whether or not you'll be thinking about it the next day, or the next week. BENT passes that test hands down. It stays with you--and likely will for a long time.
(PS--Just to follow up on a review posted below. One reviewer didn't understand the relevance of the scene in the park with Ian McKellan. I can understand the confusion, as the sound seemed unnecessarily muffled at this point in the film. It is a bit sketchy, but it's fairly clear McKellan's character is Max's uncle, who while also gay, is closeted and, unlike Max himself, not estranged from their (apparently wealthy) family. He offers Max forged papers, which the family has been able to obtain for him to facilitate his escape from Germany. Max is,however, adamant that they also obtain papers for his lover as well, an early signal that he is not just the callow and selfish hedonist he seemed to be in the film's opening scenes--which makes his ultimate transformation by the film's end all the more plausible.)
Movie Review: Compelling drama about the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis
Summary: 4 Stars
"Bent" has been on my must-watch movie list for a while [having watched and reviewed many other WW II dramas, especially those dealing with the Holocaust] and I finally watched it tonight. It proved to be a compelling viewing experience and quite amazing considering the majority of the movie is set in an internment camp and focuses on two men moving rocks from one pile to the next and repeating these movements.
Of course, the theme of the movie itself is much more complex than moving rocks - set during the early days of the Reich [before the mass killings], it traces the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. It begins in Berlin, in a nightclub operated by Greta, a transvestite [played to brilliant effect by Mick Jagger] and the camera focuses on Max [Clive Owen in a ground-breaking role], a gay Lothario who goes about seducing good-looking young men, even though he is seriously involved with Rudy, a dancer. Max's dalliance with a lover of Ernst Roehm [a well-known Nazi offcial who was also gay and who was executed under Hitler's orders] leads to Max and Rudy being targeted by the Gestapo and having to flee Berlin. Max tries to get his Uncle Freddie [Ian McKellen in a minor but memorable role], himself a closeted gay, to help but leads nowhere. Both Max and Rudy get arrested and dumped on a train bound for a camp [this was before the notorious death camps were established].
Max finds himself getting gradually de-humanised through a series of horrific incidents, yet when he arrives at the camp, he is determined to stay alive, going to the extreme of taking on the Jewish star instead of the pink triangle [symbolising one is gay], thinking that it will afford him a better chance at survival. His 'companion' during this internment is Horst [Lothaire Bluteau in a finely nuanced performance] and both men come to really care for each other, even achieving orgasm during a stand at attention without touching each other. Will Max finally find salvation and release from his suffering? Will Horst and Max have a happy-ever-after? The final minutes of the movie provides these answers.
A compelling movie that is a must-watch for those interested in the Nazi doctrine of persecuting certain groups of people deemed undesirable, in this instance, the homosexuals. It is a subject matter that is often neglected, yet this group of people suffered greatly under the Nazi reign. Having formerly taught Holocaust history, I found this movie to provide immense insight and I am definitely adding Bent to my collection of Holocaust/ WW II DVDs. Highly recommended!
Movie Review: Holocaust Romantic Tragedy
Summary: 4 Stars
Romantic tragedy of the Holocaust as a Belgium Jew residing in the Berlin of the Nazi thirties was caught between his biology and ethnicity themselves sustain mortal threats in then Germany.
It is better once watching than reading a dozen of reviews anyway.