Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Bent (1996)
Director: Sean Mathias
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Fassbinder and Costa-Gavras both wanted to film Martin Sherman's 1979 play about gay persecution under the Nazis, but it was theatre director Mathias who finally got it on screen. In this visually daring adaptation a ruined power station on the Clyde stands in for '30s Berlin, and Dachau is represented by a disused cement factory outside Tring. Owen and Bluteau are the gay men, Max and Horst, who trace a line between these points. Leaving the decadent nightlife over which Jagger's club owner, Greta, holds court, the two eventually meet in line at the concentration camp. Horst wears the homosexual's pink triangle and Max has been trying to pass as a Jew. That way, he reckons, he's not quite the lowest of the low. Although Sherman's ranking of the gays as even more oppressed than the Jewish prisoners seems unnecessary, the anger behind his screenplay is never in doubt. Life on the run keeps the first half moving, but it's hard to connect with the performers when Owen and Bluteau are dwarfed by the post-industrial surroundings.Author: TJ
Cast & crew
Director: Sean Mathias
Producer: Michael Solinger, Dixie Linder
Cast: Lothaire Bluteau, Clive Owen, Brian Webber, Ian McKellen, Mick Jagger, Jude Law, Suzanne Bertish, Rupert Graves, Charlie Watts full cast
Duration: 116 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now