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58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sexuality, romance and politics in superb East German drama, July 30, 2001
Demonstrating that love can blossom unexpectedly even under the most adverse social conditions, the late Heiner Carow's award-winning and hugely impressive "Coming Out" (1989) was filmed in communist East Berlin whilst homosexuality was still a criminal offence on that side of the Wall. Matthias Freihof plays a bright, attractive schoolteacher whose affair with a female colleague (Dagmar Manzel) is interrupted when Freihof falls in love with a beautiful young man (Dirk Kummer) whom he meets after stumbling into an illicit gay bar. Given that most gay teachers aren't exactly welcomed in even the most 'open' societies, it's inevitable that the enforced suppression of Freihof's true nature should result in the cruel deceit which he practices on the two people he loves most, with equally inevitable consequences if the truth should ever come out. In the end, it's left to an elderly patron of the gay bar (Werner Dissell) to put Freihof's problems into perspective by reminding him of a time in Germany fifty years earlier when things were much, MUCH worse for gay people...Carow was a veteran writer-director whose career stretched back to the 1950s, but this was his first attempt to tackle the problems faced by gay people under his homeland's oppressive regime. Forsaking shrill melodrama for coolly understated realism, he simply points the camera at a superb cast of talented actors and allows them to develop their characters on the foundations of Wolfram Witt's excellent script: Freihof carries the picture as an essentially decent man whose fears of legal redress provides the linchpin of the entire narrative; Kummer is the romantic teenager whose tragic past sends him in search of true love (watch him carefully in the scene directly after his lovemaking with Freihof, when he asks if they will meet again - there is such hope and longing in his beautiful face); and Manzel is dignified in the thankless role of Freihof's uncomprehending girlfriend, the one with most to lose as a result of her lover's deceit. Filmed in and around some of the illegal gay bars which proliferated in East Berlin at the time, Carow charts the burgeoning romance between Freihof and Kummer with a tenderness that almost completely eludes the 'pretend' relationship with Manzel. But while the film is defiantly romantic at heart, it's also unflinchingly honest in its depiction of political repression at even the most basic level (in class, Freihof teaches individualism and freedom of thought, whilst concealing his sexual identity for fear of reprisals). As such, the film's conclusion may seem a little abrupt, even arbitrary, to some viewers, but it actually represents the true dawning of a whole new chapter for the central characters. In fact, Freihof's closing declaration - a single word, with countless implications - must have seemed especially liberating to those who caught the film's theatrical premiere in Germany on the same day the Berlin Wall came down, ending years of repression at a stroke. Long after the political tyrants of our world are gone, movies like this one will stand like stone, bearing witness to unkind history. A must-see. First Run Features' region-free DVD was derived from a PAL master at 25fps and runs 107m 47s (112m 16s at 24fps). A generous number of extras have been provided, including a trailer and an excellent potted history of Carow's invaluable contribution to East German cinema, along with a DVD-Rom guide to the 'Best of Queer Berlin' which promises "many special features...including printer-friendly screens and useful Internet links". Well, either I was clicking in the wrong places, or the DVD-Rom section doesn't actually provide anything more than what you can access through an ordinary DVD player! Elsewhere, sound and picture quality are fine, but the disc simply replicates the drab color schemes of Martin Schlesinger's low budget cinematography, so the disc provides an accurate representation of the filmmakers' intentions. Thankfully, it's letterboxed at the original 1.66:1 ratio, but viewers with widescreen TVs will either have to display the film as a windowboxed image in the center of their screens, or blow the picture up to 16:9 dimensions and scroll it upwards (shaving a fair bit off the top) to accommodate the optional English subtitles which are situated low on the screen - an anamorphic print would have solved this annoying problem. That small niggle aside, First Run are to be commended for releasing this landmark movie on disc, where it will hopefully find an entirely new and appreciative audience. NB. Some interesting trivia: Firstly, though often cited as the first and only gay film from communist East Germany, "Coming Out" was actually preceded by Wieland Speck's "Westler" (1985), a desperately awkward West German drama concerning a love affair between two young men living on opposite sides of the Wall, which utilized clandestine footage secretly recorded in East Berlin. And secondly, the medical staff in the opening sequence of "Coming Out" are genuine, and poor Dirk Kummer appears to be having his stomach pumped FOR REAL! Talk about dedication to your craft...!!
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