David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Anton von Lucke’

All Quiet on the Western Front

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Daniel Bruhl, Devid Striesow, Edin Hasanovic, Michael Witterborn, Sebastian Hulk, Anton von Lucke, Aaron Hilmer

Running time: 2 hours and 28 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

This film is only available on Netflix

Every year on the 11^th November at 11h00, England and some European countries mark Armistice Day which is when World War 1 ended but the significance of such an hour on such a day is clearly and brutally illustrated in director Edward Berger’s brilliant German anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front, a 2022 remake of the 1930 film which won a Best Picture Oscar then.

This film is based on the famous German novel of the same name written by German soldier and World War I survivor Erich Maria Remarque published in 1929. The 2022 version has been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

If viewers love a really brilliant war film, then All Quiet on the Western Front is highly recommended viewing, an epic film masterfully directed by Edward Berger and featuring an entirely German and Austrian cast including Felix Kammerer as the main character Paul Baumer, a young and idealistic German teenager who like his compatriots at school get pulled into the blind patriotism of German war fever as the German army is battling the French in the incredibly brutal trench warfare on the Western Front, the border between Germany and France. For complete authenticity watch this film in German with English subtitles.

To counterpoint all the violence, horror and utter bloodshed, the narrative also focuses on the diplomatic mission led by Germany to sue for peace with the French, a task given to diplomat Matthias Erzberger wonderfully played by Golden Globe nominee Daniel Bruhl (Rush). The more famous Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds, 7 Days in Entebbe, Woman in Gold) also served as executive producer of All Quiet on the Western Front and was instrumental on getting this 21^st century version of the film made and premiered at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022.

As the hours approach for the ceasefire, a bloodthirsty general is determined to continue fighting the French right up until the last minute before the armistice takes effect, much to the detriment of the 78^th Infantry Reserve Regiment in which Paul Baumer is part of along with his fellow soldiers Kat played by Albrecht Schuch, Kropp played by Aaron Hilmer and Tjaden played by Bosnian actor Edin Hasanovic. Collectively they represent the Iron Youth of Germany.

All Quiet on the Western Front, like similar war films including Sam Mendes’s brilliant 1917 and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is a gritty, stark and bloody war film about the meaninglessness of trench warfare and the unnecessary deaths of over 3 million people, many of them young men.

Beautifully shot and extremely captivating, All Quiet on The Western Front gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing. It’s a fascinating anti-war film about the brutalities of close combat.

Great Freedom

Director: Sebastian Meise

Cast: Franz Rogowski, Georg Friedrich, Anton von Lucke, Thomas Prenn

Running Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

This film is in German with English Subtitles

Please note this film is sexuality explicit and contains images of drug use

Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s intensely explicit homosexual prison drama Great Freedom won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and is held together by two powerful performances by Franz Rogowski who plans renown homosexual Hans Hoffman and Georg Friedrich (Narcissus and Goldmund) who plays fellow prisoner and frequent drug user Viktor.

Hans is imprisoned under paragraph 175 for being homosexual when in post-war Germany homosexuality was criminalized. Even though Germany has been liberated by the Allies at the end of World War II, paragraph 175 still remains law and Hans tries to survive in prison by doing sewing and occasionally snatching brief sexual liaisons with younger gay men in prison, specifically played by Anton von Lucke as Leo Griese and Thomas Prenn as Oskar. However, the precocious Hans is for ever in trouble often being sent to solitary confinement.

Soon Hans befriends his cellmate Viktor who is so called straight but despite their different sexual preference, a bond of loyalty and love begins to form within the claustrophobic environment of a men’s prison in post-war Germany.

As the years pass, Hans manages to free the younger men including Leo and Oskar, however he remains in prison with Viktor until the revision of paragraph 175 in Germany in the early 1970’s. After Hans and Viktor’s relationship intensifies, the revision of paragraph of 175 allows Hans to go free.

As Hans realizes his new freedom and explores the sexual permissibility of 1970’s Germany he is forced to make a difficult choice. Great Freedom is a tender and explicit look at love in an impossible time and chronicle’s a struggle for equality for the LGBT community at a time when any deviant lifestyle was subjected to scrutiny and strict criminalization.

German actor Franz Rogowski is brilliant as the beautiful Hans Hoffman, an imprisoned gay man who bares all in an exceptionally provocative performance which makes such American portrayals of gay men in films like Milk or Brokeback Mountain positively tame.

Rogowski is superb as a stoic sexual deviant Hoffman in a world which was completely against him and made his life extremely difficult. The ending of Great Freedom is clever in it’s ambiguity supplanting a social crime with an actual one.

In a similar vein to the excellent Kiss of the Spiderwoman, director Sebastian Meise’s brilliant Great Freedom is a provocative gay prison drama involving a fight for equal rights and an unbridled passion between two lovers fuelled by suppressive captivity. Great Freedom gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is recommended viewing especially for the LGBT community.