SEAN MATHIAS

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BB.5. 

United Kingdom/Japan, 1997.  Channel Four Films, NDF Inc., ASK Kodansha, Arts Council of England.  Screenplay by Martin Sherman, based on his play.  Cinematography by Giorgos Arvanitis.  Produced by Dixie Linder, Michael Solinger. Music by Philip Glass.  Production Design by Stephen Brimson Lewis.  Costume Design by Stewart Meachem.  Film Editing by Isabelle Lorente.  

Spiritless adaptation of Martin Sherman’s play about two men locked up in a concentration camp during World War II.  Clive Owen, ashamed of having been put into the camp for being a homosexual, schemes his way to getting a yellow star on his uniform because he feels it’s less degrading than a pink triangle. When he meets fellow inmate Lothaire Bluteau, a wearer of the triangle himself, he falls in love with him and is forced to face his own self-hatred.

Despite an energetic beginning that does a ripping job of recreating the decadent years of pre-Nazi Berlin (including a wonderful drag performance by Mick Jagger), the film soon gives in to its stagebound origins and the material loses much of its original edge.