Jan Krüger and Oliver Schwabe | Freunde (Friends, aka The Wiz Kids) / 2001

dangerous love

by Douglas Messerli

 

A.M. Homes and Jan Krüger (screenplay, based on the story “The Wiz Kids” by A.M. Homes), Jan Krüger and Oliver Schwabe (directors) Freunde (Friends, aka The Wiz Kids) / 2001 [21 minutes]

 

Two sixteen-year-old-boys, Marco (Marlon Kittel) and Johannes (Martin Kiefer) are long time friends, and now spend most of their days racing toward one another, only to intensely wrestle and fight when they make contact.

    We immediately recognize their battles as not only representing the testosterone-based male games shared by many young men of their age, but perceive them as something deeper. First of all, there is a true sense of violence in Marco’s behavior toward his friend, as a scene in their chemistry classroom reveals. Whispering the word “cocksucker” in Johannes’ ear he attempts to force him to swallow a chemical in a beaker, an act finally broken up by the teacher.

     The battles between the two, we quickly perceive, are not simply struggles for dominance, but sexual encounters that particularly Marco obfuscates by using their bodily contact as occasions for a seemingly loveless groping.

      If they often engage in the “normal” childhood activities of watching videos or even playing hide-and-seek-like games at night, they often include heterosexual porno tapes or night-time gatherings that border on real abuse.

     The two also come together in quieter, more intimate, and tender moments when they seem about to communicate something deeper—although Marco often breaks up these moments with rightist political comments or through suggesting meaningly activities such as counting raindrops after the boys have escaped into a derelict ruin of a house to get out of the wet.

      Yet later they even bathe together, and at one moment; while later in Johannes’ room, the door open, Marco begins to masturbate. “I like the danger,” he insists, although Johannes mocks Marco about just how terribly “dangerous” his mother might be. When Marco finishes, he moves over to Johannes and demands he lick him dry.

        Finally, after yet another night-wrestling session which appears like sexual frottage than a wrestling bout, they get together for a truly sexual afternoon. And for the first time they both willingly and readily engage in what we might describe as normal gay love.

       But soon after, however, Marco insists they meet in an isolated area, Johannes clearly expecting that they might again join up in sex. Marco has instead invited a girl to the spot, Tanja (Rose Bender), with whom he begins to make out, having invited Johannes to “watch how it’s done.”

       Yet the making out session quickly turns into a kind of rape, as the girl first complains and the resists. Marco pushes her to the ground and pisses over her before she finally escapes.

        This time, in his attempt to prove his heterosexuality, Marco has gone too far. And Johannes walks away disgusted. It’s clear that their “friendship” can go no further.

         One commentator on Letterboxd (Rhys) observed: “i think it is strange how some people interpret this film as a sweet queer romance. the character marko [stet] is sadistic and abusive as can be seen in the end scene. he doesn't seem to care much about johannes after they'd had sex.” Rhys goes on see it was a representation of the fascist Germany of the past (Marco) as opposed to the contemporary Germany (Johannes), the latter moving on from but never forgetting the past.

        I don’t think one need, however, relate Krüge’s film to a symbolistic retelling of German history. All cultures have thousands of young men just like Marco, so terrified to admit to their own homosexual feelings that they attempt to prove their masculinity and sexuality through both the sexual abuse of women and homophobic bullying actions against gay males. The brutal wrestling we have observed throughout this film is a mixed message, an attempt to express his hatred with regard to his own self-loathing for his homosexual friend and an attempt to get closer to the one he truly desires. When the proof of his masculinity is threatened by Tanja, he has no alternative but to brutalize her for the rejection. Finally, Marco is left with no one, a being who because of his upbringing and his inability to shed those values, can love no one and is equally doomed to be unloved.

     I myself experienced just such behavior when I was young, working in a restaurant with a tough boy in my class who regularly attempted to get me alone so he could pretend to physically abuse me. I was frightened but yet intrigued since I could almost smell in the headlocks, pushes, and pulls in which he engaged me, a pheromonal hint of sexual desire which I was terrified of responding to since I knew if I submitted he would have to turn the game-playing into actual anger and even hate. It has since fascinated me how these sadly torn sexual beings could spot gay boys before they themselves even knew they were gay.

    Krüger’s short film is a powerful statement about how loving such a torn individual, as Johannes learns, is a danger you have eventually to resist.

 

Los Angeles, September 25, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).