Sebastian Meise’s “Great Freedom”

Great Freedom (Große Freiheit) (2021)

A unique and poignant prison drama which brings to light the struggles of post-WW2 gay rights as well as the importance of bridging divides

Had this film not appeared on lists of top films of 2022, I would have never heard about it. The film begins with Hans Hoffmann( an exceptional performance from Franz Rogowski) being incarcerated for “lewd acts” with other men set in the latest of three eras, all of which feature a tense connection to Viktor Kohl(Georg Friedrich), a violently straight man struggling with addiction. As the film switches between the first, second and third prison terms, Hans and Viktor’s relationship (and the world) develop in unexpected ways.

In the first era, we find that Hans is continuing a sentence for homosexual sex set by the Nazis so he has gone directly from a concentration camp to a prison now administered by the occupying Americans; the war for freedom wasn’t for everyone. The overall structure of the film works really well in communicating and contrasting the human stories of Hans and Viktor. Above and beyond everything else, the film is a story about friendship, injustice, the meaning of freedom and endurance.

Fixation will of course focus on the gay element of the film and to be clear, there is quite a bit of male intimacy from the first minute but on the whole, in my mind, it recalls films like “A Man Escaped” and “Cool Hand Luke”.

“Great Freedom” is a subtle, affecting story masterfully told without sentimentality.