"Freier Fall" (Free Fall) really is a beautiful film. Excellent cinematography. Believable characters. And the gorgeous, atypical gay guys it portrays aren't effeminate in any discernible way. Yes folks, this may be the gay film you've been waiting for. Right? Well, probably not. After viewing, like me, you most likely will still find yourself waiting.
"Free Fall" ticks off a lot of the boxes on my gay film wish-list, but it's still a foreign film. So unless you actually speak German, if your cat (or anything else) comes flying at your face and you miss a line of subtitled text, you will have to rewind to re-read what you missed. (So don't blink.) It's then a bit presumptuous to criticize the film's dialogue in any meaningful way when every nuanced word is lost on a non-native speaker. Even so, one need not be a Germanophile to recognize that Marc's girlfriend Bettina didn't seem to trust him very much from the start. She may have had two scenes where she appeared warm and affectionate. Otherwise, Bettina's role was to be a distrustful heterosexual witch doing everything she could to keep Kay from flipping her testosterone-filled, table-flipping peacock, Marc.
Speaking of Kay: Oh, Kay. (Ha!) Kay was an enigma wrapped in a mystery. A sexy enigma, but an enigma nonetheless. Here's a guy who was forward enough to masturbate Marc in the middle of a forest, have sex in a car and party regularly like it's 1999 while using date rape drugs in a gay bar (where he of course has more sex in public restrooms) but seemed to struggle with his orientation in every other meaningful way. He was gay-shamed, beaten, and blamed for every conflict in the film. He didn't really stand up for himself much and at the end, just accepted what was happening as inevitable. The lesson to be derived from all this is apparently telling people you're gay is a really, really bad idea.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed "Free Fall" and I recommend everyone see it at least once. There's moments of brilliance within this film where the connection between Marc and Kay seems genuinely authentic. But alas, those moments are fleeting as Marc is emotionally unavailable. Were this an American gay film, in the final five minutes, either Marc or Kay would have died of AIDS, committed suicide, or been involved in a vehicle/plane/jet crash leaving us to watch the credits roll in freshly distressed horror. Which is another telling indicator that this is a foreign film: Here, the ending is just as depressing but it's at least somewhat realistic and appropriate considering the events leading up to that moment.
You should see "Free Fall" at least once. Just don't expect a happy ending. (Who am I kidding? if you're a fan of gay films, you can't be expecting one of those!) No, "Free Fall" isn't perfect. But it is a gorgeous film with gorgeous men being gorgeous together most of the time. For that reason alone, you should probably check it out.
"Free Fall" ticks off a lot of the boxes on my gay film wish-list, but it's still a foreign film. So unless you actually speak German, if your cat (or anything else) comes flying at your face and you miss a line of subtitled text, you will have to rewind to re-read what you missed. (So don't blink.) It's then a bit presumptuous to criticize the film's dialogue in any meaningful way when every nuanced word is lost on a non-native speaker. Even so, one need not be a Germanophile to recognize that Marc's girlfriend Bettina didn't seem to trust him very much from the start. She may have had two scenes where she appeared warm and affectionate. Otherwise, Bettina's role was to be a distrustful heterosexual witch doing everything she could to keep Kay from flipping her testosterone-filled, table-flipping peacock, Marc.
Speaking of Kay: Oh, Kay. (Ha!) Kay was an enigma wrapped in a mystery. A sexy enigma, but an enigma nonetheless. Here's a guy who was forward enough to masturbate Marc in the middle of a forest, have sex in a car and party regularly like it's 1999 while using date rape drugs in a gay bar (where he of course has more sex in public restrooms) but seemed to struggle with his orientation in every other meaningful way. He was gay-shamed, beaten, and blamed for every conflict in the film. He didn't really stand up for himself much and at the end, just accepted what was happening as inevitable. The lesson to be derived from all this is apparently telling people you're gay is a really, really bad idea.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed "Free Fall" and I recommend everyone see it at least once. There's moments of brilliance within this film where the connection between Marc and Kay seems genuinely authentic. But alas, those moments are fleeting as Marc is emotionally unavailable. Were this an American gay film, in the final five minutes, either Marc or Kay would have died of AIDS, committed suicide, or been involved in a vehicle/plane/jet crash leaving us to watch the credits roll in freshly distressed horror. Which is another telling indicator that this is a foreign film: Here, the ending is just as depressing but it's at least somewhat realistic and appropriate considering the events leading up to that moment.
You should see "Free Fall" at least once. Just don't expect a happy ending. (Who am I kidding? if you're a fan of gay films, you can't be expecting one of those!) No, "Free Fall" isn't perfect. But it is a gorgeous film with gorgeous men being gorgeous together most of the time. For that reason alone, you should probably check it out.