Paragraph 175

This film is an excellent example of letting people tell their story without embellishing the contextual situation. The extra material added to the interviews is perfectly balanced to put the interviews in their historical and personal context, without unduly expanding the context to overshadow what the (very few) survivors had to tell. Enough information is given about paragraph 175 and it's application during Hitler's reign and after for us to get an insight of its consequences, and the situation of denial of our 'civilised' western countries even today regarding the gay victims of this horror. But the focus is on the survivors' tale, not the context. This technique (too rarely applied) produced an extremely powerful documentary. I have seldom seen such a well balanced work.

The golden days of decadent Berlin came to a bloody halt when Hitler's regime took over Germany in the early 1930s and gay men were brought down by simple innuendo and gossip (lesbianism was considered curable, but male homosexuality was "catching"). Early talk of homosexuality in Hitler's ranks precipitated the reinsertion of Paragraph 175, an old anti-sodomy law from the late 1800s, and gays were branded with the lowly Pink Triangle. Forceful documentary on a little talked-about chapter of history has just a handful of elderly witnesses but a superlative presentation of personally-shot footage mixed with telling photographs. Some of the recollections are haunting; the doomed come back to life in these harrowing stories. *** from ****

I was a bit put off by some of the negative comments, but it is always interesting to then view a film which is praised by some and despised by one or two. As is often the case, the negative views turn out to be more a reflection of personality rather than of serious critical scholarship.

Putting together this film was hardly a snap. There are only a handful of survivors still alive and living in central Europe, and some refused to appear in the film. I think the film-makers were very successful in capturing the essence of the homosexual experience during the Nazi times and beyond, as reflected in the footage they obtained from the six or seven survivors who were willing to share their stories on camera.

We really don't need any more "education" on Nazi legal machinations or conditions in concentration camps. We ARE interested in the experiences and emotions of these particular people, to see them and hear them, before they are swallowed by the inexorable march of time. The film performs this invaluable service and does it well.

The interviews are interspersed with a general historical summary of events and their effect on the gay community in Germany during the years between the two great wars, and later on. Yes, these parts may resemble a special on the History Channel. Nothing wrong with that!

All in all, a very professional job and a solid achievement.

While I think that everyone should see this film because of its vitally important subject matter, I feel that because of lax editing and meandering, incomplete story telling, it was much less effective than it should have been.

As just one example, and I have been studying Nazi persecution of homosexuals, the movie briefly refers to a gay man's friend who was killed by German Shepherd dogs in front of 300 people. I read a similar account on the Internet (I suspect it was the same case), in which graphic details were given of the brutality of the crime, details which, if you heard or read about, you would never forget. To just gloss over this compelling tale in the manner the movie does is inexcusable. How can one understand the true horror when it is glossed over.

Additionally, one of the major points of this film should be how many gay concentration camp victims were still treated as prisoners after the war, specifically because of Paragraph 175. It is barely a footnote in the movie. This is inexplicable to me.

What is good is having a record of living survivors of gay detention during the Holocaust. It remains the reason for seeing this movie. But the narrative is very meandering and a few of the lingering close-ups of some of the survivors breaking down almost feels exploitative.

Bottom line: because of the important subject matter and the live interviews the film needs to be seen. I just wish it had been made more coherently. A film with this type of material will always be powerful. It could have been far more so had it been made by better filmmakers.

Touching documentary by the creators of Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt and The Celluloid Closet that interviews survivors of the Holocaust who had been interred in concentration camps for being homosexual. Directors Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein cleverly use real footage and very powerful interviews, all linked by Rupert Everett's narration to tell a very powerful story and make a very difficult, if not always unforgettable, film. It's not as zesty as The Celluloid Closet was, due to its subject matter naturally, nor is it as compelling as their Oscar-winning effort of 1984 The Times of Harvey Milk, mostly due to a somewhat wobbly narrative, but it's definitely a worthy piece of work, especially since the men who do tell their stories onscreen are at turns brave, wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable.