| Bent | | Cast : | Clive Owen, Lothaire Bluteau | | Director : | Sean Mathias | | Studio : | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | November 26, 1997 | | DVD Released Date : | September 07, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 22, 2005 | | Summary | I was expecting a good story... | Content
 | The premise grabbed me; it is about a gay man sent to the concentration camps during WWII. I was expecting some really good things from it; "gay entertainment," as well as having the Nazi attrocities against gays highlighted for starters.
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement; it's a bad sign when I wished the SS would just shoot the main character and make it a movie about his boyfriend instead! I despised the main character...he was everything I could possibly dislike about a person all rolled up into one.
He's a multi-time cheater on the same person, a coke-head, a jerk, very promiscuous, makes (unwelcome) decisions for other people...throw in some domestic abuse and you've just about covered it.
He's someone I'd be ashamed to know...needless to say, it was impossible to sympathize with his wretched character. And I can't say I'm happy with the clear stereotypes of "gay life" being portrayed from the very beginning. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 08, 2005 | | Summary | Hard to watch... but brilliantly moving and provoking | Content
| I still don't know all what to say about this movie, since I only just saw it a couple days ago and its still simmering in my mind. But I do know it had a big impact on me. The way it was made, the way it showed you this world they lived in and how it was so quickly taken away. The movie isn't perfect, but for some reason I wouldn't change a thing. McJagger is dead on as Greta/George, and Clive Owen is amazing. Actually all performances in this film were excellent. And the title "Bent" is a word that means homosexual (as opposed to "straight"), and certainly not referring to the shape of the main character's penis as was stated in a previous review. I don't know where they got that idea. the movie is hardly so shallow as to focus on such an insignificant thing as the man's penis when the emotional scope of the film is simply epic. 5 stars. see it if you can handle holocaust 'downers' |
| Rating | | | Date | April 10, 2005 | | Summary | Gripping. . . but could have been better. . . | Content
| This may very well be the first somewhat 'mainstream' film produced that has directly addressed the pink triangle. The film has some solid and heartbreaking performances, particularly from Clive Owen (most notably in the train scene when he is repeating to himself hysterically, "this is not happening, this is not happening": you can see genuine terror in his eyes) and the cinematography is beautiful in parts. Granted, the film has a lot going for it, but there are still too many distractions. Most notably among these is the faux-avante guarde, Guy Ritchie-esque dialogue between the characters, particularly the Nazi camp officer "who sees everything". And then there is the horrifyingly miscast Mick Jagger who...well, we'll just leave it at that. These flaws just detract from what could have been a groundbreaking masterpiece. But the film's main performances and atmosphere make up for it to some extent. Come to think of it, the film could also have been better adapted from the stage to the screen; almost a third of the film depicts the two main characters moving rocks back and forth in a quarry, during which the dialogue between them is supposed to be the focus. On stage, this may be suitable, but not for the big screen. Overall, this was a good film but it could have been far better. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 21, 2004 | | Summary | Quality performances make a quality Movie experience | Content
| Some people might say the morals set in this movie are a bit strange but that is coming from the people who just have to have a nonstop action setting. People have said this movie is a bit stagey, i agree but being a young actor myself it is quite rare that you view this kind of work. I liked the way that it was. This movie is great. The performances are outstanding expecially from Clive Owen, who i enjoyed in King Arthur. The man has exceptional ability to keep the audience with him the entire film to the shocking and breath taking ending. Ian Mckellan who was also in the stage version of this film makes this movie even more better. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 05, 2004 | | Summary | Don't Let "Bent" Fall Through the Cracks Again | Content
| Many reviewers have made insightful comments about the new-to-DVD "Bent" in this space. I first saw the film version of what was originally a play in 1998, shortly after its release. Now it is released again and I've given it a second look. It remains as powerful, and underrated, as ever. Though you sometimes can't escape the fact that it began its life on the stage, "Bent" is a success as cinema, with superb cinematography and powerfully understated performances by the entire cast--including the splendid Mick Jagger, as Greta, who embodies the rudderless, urban, hyperstylized post WWI-era Berlin so vividly depicted in Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Diaries 1929 - 1939. Jagger's pitch perfect,mannered performance of "Streets Of Berlin" is quite haunting, and his "mask" of a woman, intentionally transparent, gone in place of expediency when he perfoms a careless (rather than malevolent) act of duplicity that would surely be avenged brutally. R.W. Fassbinder, had he lived to direct this work, may have made it as deliberately 'theatrical' as his adaptation of Genet's "Querelle," but I doubt it: I wish he lived long enough to give us his version. But "Bent" is a film for those who love cinema and are willing to see a powerful film about love and redemption: don't believe it is a "gay" movie or a "holocaust" film - see it and be moved. |
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