Plot
Max is gay and as such is sent to Dachau concentration camp under the Nazi regime. He tries to deny he is gay and gets a yellow label (the one for Jews) instead of pink (the one for gays)...

Release Year: 1997

Rating: 7.1/10 (3,556 voted)

Director: Sean Mathias

Stars: Lothaire Bluteau, Clive Owen, Mick Jagger

Storyline
Max is gay and as such is sent to Dachau concentration camp under the Nazi regime. He tries to deny he is gay and gets a yellow label (the one for Jews) instead of pink (the one for gays). In camp he falls in love with his fellow prisoner Horst, who wears his pink label with pride.

Writers: Martin Sherman, Martin Sherman

Cast:
Mick Jagger - Greta
Clive Owen - Max
Brian Webber - Rudy
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - Wolf (as Nikolaj Waldau)
Jude Law - Stormtrooper
Gresby Nash - Waiter
Suzanne Bertish - Half-Woman - Half-Man
David Meyer - Gestapo Man
Stefan Marling - SS Captain
Richard Laing - SS Guard
Crispian Belfrage - SS Guard
Ian McKellen - Uncle Freddie
Johanna Kirby - Muttering Woman
David Phelan - Fluff in Park
Peter Stark - Guard 1 on Train

Official Website: MGM |

Release Date: 26 November 1997

Filming Locations: Dalmellington, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK

Opening Weekend: $145,222 (USA) (30 November 1997) (12 Screens)

Gross: $372,341 (USA) (28 December 1997)

Runtime: 105 min

Trivia:
Ian McKellen, who appears as Uncle Freddie in the film, starred in the role of Max in the original London West End theatre production in 1979.

Quotes:
Max: Ever go to the Silhouette?
Horst: Yes.
Max: I never saw you there.
Horst: You weren't looking.
Max: Greta's Club?
Horst: No.
Max: Good, you had taste. The White Mouse?
Horst: Sometimes.
Max: I'm surprised you never saw me there. Did you sunbathe?
Horst: I love to sunbathe.
[...]

powerful

Rating:

When Martin Sherman's play first appeared (with Ian McKellen as Max and Tom Bell as Horst) it caused outrage and much discussion with its sympathetic and frank treatment of forbidden love in the age of the SS.

Here it has undergone a few changes but retains its stark power. Clive Owen (probably not my first choice for the role) plays Max, the homosexual who pretends to be a Jew so he is not at the bottom of the pecking order of prisoners. The way the SS force him to prove his sexuality is shocking whether on the printed page, in a theatre, or up on the big screen. Brian Webber plays his intellectual lover Rudy with some class and it is a brief but touching performance.

Lothaire Bluteau, who I had only seen before in 'Jesus of Montreal', was brilliant in the role of Horst, the prisoner with the pink triangle who awakens Max again from his imprisoned desires. There are quiet and intense scenes between the two that are almost unbearably moving to watch, and are done within this film extremely well.

Elsewhere in the cast, Ian McKellen himself plays Uncle Freddie (but those of us who saw him as Max would love to have seen that portrayal immortalised on screen), while Mick Jagger is surprisingly good as Greta (a role which could easily be played wrong but he's spot on).

This play/film is intended to make its audience confront their prejudices, to shock, move, and inspire them. I think it is an unmissable experience - a difficult one, but worthwhile.

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