Bleak ‘Bent’ Makes Smooth Move to Screen

At the beginning of the powerful, galvanizing “Bent,” a spotlight picks up a black-stockinged singer in silhouette, perched on a steel circle as it is lowered into a vast warehouse turned into a nightclub, where a veritable pansexual orgy is going on.

As the camera draws closer, the singer--singing a very Marlene Dietrich-like song called “The Streets of Berlin”--looks to be Sandra Bernhard, only a bit older. It turns out to be Mick Jagger, however, playing Greta, the drag queen star and proprietor of the club.

We seem at first glance to be back in the bad old Berlin of “Cabaret,” but we’re much later in the day than that. Hitler has now come to power and is moving swiftly against gays and lesbians, so swiftly it would seem that many homosexuals--accustomed to the laissez-faire policies of the Weimar Republic--are caught unawares. “Bent,” in fact, opens on June 30, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, when homosexual Nazi commander Ernst Rohm and many others were purged by Heinrich Himmler on Hitler’s orders. That very evening the Gestapo raids Greta’s club, and eventually caught up in the state police’s ever-widening web are Max (Clive Owen), handsome playboy scion of a wealthy family, and his lover Rudy (Brian Webber), a dancer at the club.

With dizzying speed the lovers are heading for Dachau on a freight car, where Rudy meets a truly unspeakable fate, while a fellow prisoner, Horst (Lothaire Bluteau), tells Max what he must do if he is to survive. Once at Dachau, Horst must wear the pink triangle, designating the wearer as homosexual, but Max gets a yellow Star of David, believing that he will be better off thought of as a Jew than a homosexual.

Year in and year out there remains a fairly steady flow of dramas and documentaries dealing with the Holocaust in regard to the fate of Europe’s Jews. Only one documentary on gay victims of the Holocaust comes to mind, and therefore “Bent”--a remarkably deft transposition by Martin Sherman of his successful play to the screen--verges on the unique. (Estimates on how many gays and lesbians died in the camps range from a ridiculously low 5,000 all the way up to 600,000.)

Once in Dachau Max manages to have Horst assigned to him in their daily task of moving a pile of rocks from one side of a quarry, an activity with no purpose beyond attempting to drive the two men out of their minds. Having instilled in Max the will to survive, Horst dares to take a further step, encouraging Max to try to feel, although the men dare not touch each other, even avoiding glances at each other. It is in fact a declaration of love on Horst’s part, which Max instinctively resists as dangerous.

Love between two men in Dachau, even if not consummated by physical contact, is in fact paradoxical, strengthening each man’s will to survive yet rendering him emotionally vulnerable in his concern for the other. Yet the love that develops between Max and Horst gives them dignity, a way in which to give their long days of pointless, exhausting labor meaning. Sherman does not confuse sheer survival with living life to the fullest possible in the most abominable of circumstances.

Directed with unfailing aplomb by Sean Mathias, “Bent” is nevertheless all but unbearable in its bleakness. Thankfully, it has a saving humor, and it is the kind of material that, combined with the shrewd judgment of Mathias’ direction, inspires actors to create towering portrayals, calling upon them to reach deeply within themselves, which is clearly what Owen and Bluteau (memorable in the title role of “Jesus of Montreal”) have done. Webber is equally fine as the sometimes foolish, ill-fated Rudy. The film moves well, heightened by Philip Glass’ pulsating score, more varied than usual for him.

Jagger is amusingly bitchy as the treacherous Greta, who reassumes his real name, George, trading in his gowns for business suits. So is Ian McKellen as Max’s uncle, a gay dandy who’s prepared to try to help his nephew but not Rudy. (McKellen created the role of Max, which Sherman wrote with him in mind, in the 1979 premiere stage production of “Bent.”) In cameos you can spot Jude Law and Rupert Graves (as Nazis), Sadie Frost (as a nightclubber) and Rachel Weisz (as a prostitute). “Bent” may be hard to take, but it’s easy to admire.

* MPAA rating: NC-17, for a strong scene of graphic sexuality. Times guidelines: The opening orgy sequence is brief but specific.

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‘Bent’

Clive Owen: Max

Lothaire Bluteau: Horst

Brian Webber: Rudy

Ian McKellen: Uncle Freddie

Mick Jagger: Greta/George

An MGM release of a Goldwyn Entertainment Co. and Channel Four Films presentation in association with NDF Inc., Ask Kodansha Co, Ltd, and the Arts Council of England. Director Sean Mathias. Producers Michael Solinger, Dixie Linder. Executive producers Sarah Radclyffe, Hisami Kuroiwa.. Screenplay by Martin Sherman; adapted from his play. Cinematographer Yorgos Arvanatis. Editor Isabel Lorente. Costumes Stewart Meachem. Music Philip Glass. Production designer Stephen Brimstone Lewis. Art director Andrew Golding. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

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