Following a quick prologue in 1968, the movie backtracks to the finish of Entire world War II, as Hans is currently being remanded into civilian custody from a get the job done camp. The story, by Austrian author-director Sebastian Meise (whose film produced the 2021 Oscar shortlist for ideal global feature), then hops around in time in between the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, with the only original clues as to chronology coming from the protagonist’s hair, sideburns and mustache.
But steadily, a tale of bittersweet splendor and sudden tenderness emerges.
The grim location, no matter of time interval, is the seemingly unchanging hell of prison, in which Hans is shown staying thrown into the darkness of solitary confinement in one decade, only to arise from the shadows in another, in a tale whose constants include things like the fact that Hans, for some rationale, has resigned himself to his destiny. An additional mainstay is the character of Viktor (Georg Friedrich), a convicted assassin and junkie who evolves, above the years, from Hans’s homophobic cellmate to — perfectly, something else solely. Friedrich’s advanced, contradictory efficiency is a marvel, 2nd only to that of Rogowski, who delivers his characteristic enthusiasm and soulfulness to the position.
Staying solid out by modern society is all that Hans — a recidivist if ever there was just one — looks to have regarded. We learn minor about his existence outside the house of confinement he mentions, enigmatically, at a single position that his daily life right before consisted of performing “this and that.” At a further point, Hans is incarcerated with a person (Anton von Lucke) who was picked up in a public toilet for owning intercourse with him. Decades afterwards, he’s shown residing in jail with a lover (Thomas Prenn) he after shared an apartment with outside. Theirs is a connection that will conclusion in heartbreaking tragedy.
Throughout it all, Hans is (primarily) indomitable. But this is no saga of stamina. Relatively, “Great Freedom” paints a psychological portrait of anyone who has been down so lengthy it looks like up to him. The title is ironic and refers, on a person stage, to the title of a homosexual bar that Hans visits in 1969, upon his release, and on yet another stage to what the poet Robert Frost when identified as the independence that will come from remaining “easy in your harness” — that is, the level of consolation that occurs, paradoxically, in a condition of restraint. Hans is who he is and will be who he will be, unalterably, no matter of his point out of captivity. For him, adore will bloom anywhere it’s planted.
But that is a sick and a sorry condition of mind to have to settle for, Meise reminds us. 1 of the loveliest scenes happens immediately after Hans and his fellow inmates have viewed the 1969 moon landing on television. Viktor complains that the historic function feels anticlimactic, although Hans, in silence, appears out the window of their shared mobile at the distant moon, as if the believed of it were being no farther absent — or extra unattainable — than the area he is in.
It’s tempting to say that there’s a form of admirable take care of to Hans’s embrace of adversity. But his predicament is also devastating. Hans’s problem is not seriously becoming “easy” in a harness at all. Fairly, he is a gentleman who has been so deformed and twisted by a society that reviles him that he can only stand up tall when he has been cast out of it.
Unrated. At the Angelika Movie Heart Mosaic. Contains coarse language, nudity, intercourse, drug use, cigarette smoking, mature thematic elements and temporary violence. In German and some English with subtitles. 116 minutes.