Achím von Borríes | Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in Thoughts) / 2004

tied up in knots

 

by Douglas Messerli

 

Achím von Borríes and Henk Handloegten (screenplay, based on a story by Annette Hess, Alexandere Pfeuffer and Arno Meyer zu Künigdorf, based on the book by Meyer zu Küingdorf) Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in Thoughts) / 2004

 

This beautiful, languorous, German film is based on the then notorious Steglitz Student Tragedy of 1927, part and parcel of the inglorious Weimar Republic before the Nazi takeover.

     In this poetical work, the wealthy student Guenther (August Diehl) and his sexually precocious sister Hilde (Anna Maria Mühe)—the latter of whom is determined never to tie herself down to one man or sexual desire— invite during a school break, the young somewhat dense and certainly intense poet and working-class figure Paul (Daniel Brühl).

     Guenther clearly has the hots for his poet, but because apparently of the latter’s heterosexuality, attempts, with immediate success to introduce him to his beloved sister (beloved, in this case, intonating the brother’s own feelings for his sister).

     Moreover, Guenther’s great sexual love, in whose arms he has felt the greatest moments of joy is Hans (Thure Lindhardt) who works as a soup cook in the city. The two have been lovers in the past and the film centers on his attempts to rekindle that relationship in a wild all-night party Guenther throws in his country villa, a party which includes a wide range of individuals, including Hilde’s wall-flower friend Elli (Jana Pallaske), who is in love with Paul from an earlier meeting with the Scheller’s, Guenther and Hilde. Oddly enough it is Elli who temporarily gets her man and turns the virgin into an even more confused young man. Behind the endless liquor, dancing, violence, and lovemaking is Guenther’s own gun violence, as he establishes a suicide club and will end in Paul and he killing themselves after taking revenge on all those who have hurt them in their attempts to engage in love. As Dennis Harvey, writing in Variety nicely summarizes the situation:  “Longing and jealousy flare over the course of a weekend spent largely at a lakeside summer house. There, the assembled get drunk, frolic in their lingerie, jump over a bonfire, go skinny-dipping, quote Goethe, hallucinate on absinthe, write poetic odes to one another, have sex and sulk a lot.”

     When Guenther tries once again to get Hans into is bed, the busy boy runs off to Hilde’s room, resulting in a heaving wave of disrepair, sadness, and violence. 

     Come morning, Guenther discovers Hans hiding behind a curtain in Hilde’s room and shoots him dead before pointing the gun to his own head a pulling the trigger.

  Fortunately, Paul, now destroyed does not reciprocate regarding Guenther’s suicide pact, and is eventually able to explain the circumstances; he is sentenced to three months in jail for weapon charges, and found innocent of all other involvement.

   Because of the notoriety of the events, he is forced to escape Nazi Germany. Elli, we are told, ever marries.

   Perhaps, as Harvey suggests, the major problem of this otherwise fascinating Fassbinder-influences study of the mold gathering round the Weimar Republic well-to-do (while also exposing their up-to-date conceptions of the world, is that “the lead thesps [thespians] are OK, but both script and direction err assuming that having them endlessly stare at one another with feigned desire or anguish will provide all the emotional intensity (let alone psychological depth) needed.

    Yet one cannot help but stare back at these lost figures of a doomed time with sympathy and a sense of their tragic moment in history.

 

Los Angeles, June 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2025).

Daniel Daniel | Bleach / 2023

the stings of reality

by Douglas Messerli

 

 Alfie Flewitt (screenplay), Daniel Daniel (director) Bleach / 2023 [19 minutes]

 

Lloyd (Matthew Pieterse) is a not terribly handsome man obsessed with weight-lifting and workout exercises. Most of his days are spend in endless attention to his body. But my night it is all Grindr, even though Lloyd has some difficulty in actually coming having his brutal thrusts.

    Nonetheless, two men, Gabriel (Jamie McClean) and Clive (Oliver Bennett) are attracted to this lug and go out of their way to express their love and concern for him, despite, after ropes of sperm which he licks from the floor, Lloyd has little demonstrative interest in their existence.

     As soon as they leave, he pulls out the bleach and with gloves, cleans up the floor and his workout equipment.

    Clive seems particular interested in Lloyd until after several kisses, he turns again into the brutal force he is with most Grindr men, losing him a much-needed friend.

     Lloyd has already accidently broken his gloves while cleaning and been severely burnt in the process. Now the lonely beef enters a full tub of bleach, destroying himself in the process.

     This brutal British film of 19 minutes is painful to watch every step along the way, and ends disastrously.

 

Los Angeles, May 31, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2025).