Sean Mathias
1997
108 minutes
This is Bent with a "B", not Rent with an "R". They are similar in that they both have LGBT themes and, like La Boheme, one of the characters becomes gravely ill from a consumption-like illness. However, this one is not really a musical and certainly not very light-hearted. This one is a drag. It's a holocaust film very loosely based on the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, and it only has one musical number of note. Willard, the main character, gets arrested for hanging out with the wrong people (including gay Nazis) and quickly learns he will get at least marginally better treatment for being Jewish than for being queer. So he pretends to be Jewish and ends up in Dachau. He makes friends with Benjamin, another man who actually was arrested for being gay, and the two of them fall in love of a sorts and end up having a miserable time and coming to a depressing end together. There's a very intense scene where they take a break from carrying rocks back and forth and have a sort of social-distance "talk sex" while taking a break in a pretty intense and erotic and almost comical scene.
You visited Dachau on your first trip to Germany as a teenager with your German class. It seemed depressing and evil and mundane all at once. You remember the sad fact that the town was attempting to rebrand themselves and be known for something besides hosting a concentration camp, but "Ski Dachau" didn't really seem to be catching on as a slogan. You're no longer confident that this will always be the case, considering current events and sentiments.
This film is best known for its touching theme song, which was famously composed by Philip Glass and had lyrics added by Michael Jackson:
Bent, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for
With a friend to call my own
I'll never be alone
And you, mein Freund, will see
You've got a friend in me
Bent, you're carrying stones from here to there
You feel you're not wanted anywhere
If you run into the wire
Then the guards will open fire
That is something you should know
We've got nowhere else to go...
Time to choose something different: