Bent - Sean Mathias

This film is based on a play, which in turn, is loosely based on the book "The Men With The Pink Triangle". 'Loosely' is an accurate word as none of the characters, including Josef Kohout, the main subject of the biography appear in the film. I recognised some of the situations; the long train journey to the camps, the soul crushing physical tasks such as hauling rocks and snow from place to place for no reason but to break their humanity - but other than that the work bears little resemblance. It is a complete re-interpretation.

Watching the film with its limited number of sets and occasional monologues it is quite obvious that the film began life on the stage. The opening scene depicting the infamous Berlin nightclubs was transposed to urban ruins - foreshadowing the collapse of the Weimar republic under the Nazi regime.

I enjoyed the unique viewpoint of the film. The director took the opportunity to explore the difference between two gay men, one who wore the pink triangle badge and the other who managed to con his way to a Jewish yellow star instead. This was a clever device used to highlight the fact that there was status in the camps between badge colours (pink being the lowest of the low) and also that badge colour was not necessarily an indication of sexuality. In other words a green criminal, red political, or yellow Jewish star could easily have also been homosexual - just not criminally charged as one. Sometimes it is easy to overlook this fact.

Some of the Nazi guards would have been homosexual too, as depicted in a conversation between the two gay prisoners; the 'jewish star' had given a blowjob to one of the guards in order to obtain medicine for his comrade. After enquiring if the medicine is working it is pointed out that the guard would only have received a blowjob from the yellow star prisoner, never the pink triangle one. Morality aside of having to prostitute himself for his friend's medicine, these situations highlight the utter hypocrisy at work in the camps. But, I guess, that is the least of their worries.

One description from the book that I have thought about trying to visualise in my BoW is that pink triangle prisoners had to sleep with their arms and hands above the covers at all times, all night, with the lights on - for the duration of their internment. This made sleeping difficult. The accusation was that "filthy homosexuals" would touch themselves or each other during the night. As Josef Kohout pointed out in his biography, being used as guard target practice as they hauled rocks during the day kind of puts paid to any emotions other than survival. In the film this 'no touching' scenario is worked out very cleverly. The two prisoners over time had come to cautiously care for each other as they worked side by side moving rocks. Every two hours they are allocated a two minute break where they must stand motionless to attention. The guard watching over them is some distance away and the two men begin to talk sexually to each other as they face forwards. With their minds and words they explore each others bodies, talking up the sexual tension until they reach physical orgasm. I thought this was a fascinating scene; not only for depicting the ability to connect sexually, mind to mind, without physical or visual contact; but also for portraying the utter inhumanity that was imposed on the concentration camp prisoners where touching and even looking was punishable by death. This scene must have been extremely powerful to watch when performed live on stage.