Bent
Bent
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 fellow prisoner Horst, who wears his pink label with pride.
Charles London reviewedMay 20, 2025
The forgotten victims of the Holocaust, the "pink triangles", are the main characters in this movie that is basically a 3-act screenplay. In the first act, we get the flavor of Berlin in 1934, just before and after the Night of the Long Knives. Here, Mick Jaggar is brilliantly cast as a transvestite performer. The second (and best) act takes place on a train to Dachau. It is raw and intense.
The third act, the concentration camp, evokes empathy but, at times, borderlines on tedium. The flow of the film becomes disrupted by protracted scenes of rock moving, a cruel and unusual form of punishment designed to torture and humiliate homosexual prisoners. Had these scenes been more tidy, perhaps the movie would have been stronger down the stretch. Instead, it peaks in the middle.
Although imperfect, this mostly watchable film puts an important spotlight on Hitler's "other" diabolic obsession. I never get mad at a good history lesson.