Critic's Grade: C

Sean Mathias's "Bent" is a film of missed opportunities, a failure to capture a portrait of history that little people know about: the discrimination and harsh treatment of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Europe. What should be a hard-hitting depiction of life in the concentration camps for this select group of people ends up being a stagey, flashy, unmoving melodrama that has minor moments of interest, but ultimately renders the film without emotion or impact.

The film is based on the play by Martin Sherman, who also wrote the screenplay; funny how the movie often feels like a stage production, with its actors spouting lines that seem to have little to no effect on the audience whatsoever. It begins in Berlin, where we meet Max (Clive Owen), a man of the night life who hops from guy to guy, much to the disapproval of his live-in boyfriend, Rudy (Brian Webber), who spends his time dancing and pouting over Max's actions.

One night, at a wild and crazy queen gala thrown by a very gawdy-looking Mick Jagger, Max picks up a soldier boy who just happens to be involved with a higher-up; the next morning, he is hunted down and murdered (quite gratuitously, I might add), leaving Max and Rudy on the lam from the Nazis, who are increasing their stronghold over the homosexual population of Berlin. They take refuge in the woods while Max attempts to retrieve two train tickets out of town from his gay Uncle Freddie (Ian McKellan). The deal goes sour, and Max and Rudy are captured and taken aboard a train.

The train sequence gives us our first glimpse of life for homosexuals in this time and place. Max witnesses the brutal beating and murder of his lover, whom he claims not to know when questioned by an SS officer; later, he is taken to a separate car and forced to make love to a woman to prove himself to the Nazis. From this series of events, we get the inkling that the material is generating into a serious drama about history.

No such luck. We soon arrive at the concentration camp Dachau, where Max meets Horst (Lothaire Bluteau), a homosexual who is apparently proud that he wears the pink triangle, and who is appalled that Max struck a deal with the Gestapo and retrieved a yellow Star of David that falsely identifies him as a Jew. Max seems intrigued by Horst, enough to bribe yet another guard to have them placed alone in the same work unit moving rocks back and forth. They begin to develop a bond of friendship through their conversations, that which the movie then tells us is love, lust, passion, romance... you catch my drift.

If there is one thing I like about this romance, it is the dialogue. The exchanges of furtive sexual phrases and fantasies between Max and Horst are some of the most erotically charged lines of any movie to date; to listen to them talk sure beats the hell out of watching two actors pawing at one another while a saxaphone plays in the background. What I don't like is the fact that director Mathias loses sight of the big picture, working his audience into the love story in such a manner that we lose track of the brutality of the Nazis, the conditions of the camps, and the entire historical aspect of the piece as a whole.

The first of many speedbumps comes from the lack of character development. Despite all intentions to make Max someone we can relate to, it's too difficult to see these events through his eyes when all he seems to be looking at is his workmate's body. And when he's not doing that, he's spouting lines like "Don't love me, I'm a rotten person," or my personal favorite, "I'm going to stay alive." What is he, a Bee Gee or something? Horst doesn't exactly fare so well, either: he's merely cast into the material without any backstory, and that makes it even harder for us to see the emotional strain in either him or Max. There should also be a sense of profound change seen in Max, but Owen's wooden, one-note performance lacks the drive to bring it to the surface; even his tears seem forced.

In addition to this, too much of the movie feels staged. The actors appear to be doing little more than reading lines, and the choreography and photography of certain scenes just looks to much like a play to feel like a real motion picture. One has to wonder why the filmmakers went to all the trouble of hiring a cast and scouting out locations: I'd go so far as to say that a taping of the play itself might merit more interest and praise than what is seen here.

But, in the end, the lack of attention to history is what nags me the most about this movie, which substitutes involving drama for disconnected melodrama, sacrificing true story for fictional excess. In 1994 a book was published by the name of "The Men With the Pink Triangle," which was survivor Heinz Heger's first-person account of the harsh treatment of homosexuals in the detention and concentration camps during the Nazi rule of Europe in World War II. Reading the book provided me a powerful, moving, and insightful look at this part of little-known part of history. It's only a shame that "Bent," lacks that same impact, when it so clearly had every chance to achieve it.

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