The Circle (2014) Der Kreis
The Circle (2014)
DVDRip | MKV | 720 x 576 | x264 @ 2500 Kbps | 101 min | 1,98 Gb
Audio: German AAC 2.0 @ 155 Kbps | Subs: English hardcoded
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Romance
DVDRip | MKV | 720 x 576 | x264 @ 2500 Kbps | 101 min | 1,98 Gb
Audio: German AAC 2.0 @ 155 Kbps | Subs: English hardcoded
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Romance
Zürich in the mid 50‘s: The young shy teacher Ernst Ostertag becomes a member of the gay organisation DER KREIS. There he gets to know the transvestite star Röbi Rapp – and immediately falls head over heels in love with him. Röbi and Ernst live through the high point and the eventual decline of the organization, which in the whole of Europe is seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation. Ernst finds himself torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality, for Röbi it is about his first serious love relationship. A relationship which will last a lifetime. The film looks back from the present to the time when the „Mother“ of all European homosexual organizations had its high point to the time it slowly fell apart. While the repression against homosexuals became increasingly more intense in Zürich, two young and very different men fight for their love and – together with their friends – for the rights of gays.
IMDB - 10 wins
This is a mix of documentary interviews and recreation of the lives of two gay men growing up in 1950's Switzerland and the magazine that brought them together. Ernst is a mild mannered teacher and he hears of an organisation that is a support structure for people like him – 'confirmed bachelors'. This is Der Kreis or The Circle – it was a publication made in Zurich and had readers worldwide. Ernst meets an enigmatic drag queen in Robi Rapp and falls for him completely.
Despite their and the editors efforts to keep on the right side of the Swiss law, things start to unravel after the murder of a closeted musician and then the spotlight is thrown onto the underworld gay scene. The spotlight and media attention paint a world populated by degenerates out to undermine the fabric of society and nothing will be the same again.
This is told with actors recreating the pivotal scenes and then with modern day interviews with Ernst and Robi. All of the actors are superb but Sven Schelker playing Robi is just wonderful. It would be easy to glamorise this by saying it is a story of sex, intrigue and murder and to a large extent that would be true. However, at its core it is a story of love, companionship and living a lie in a world fearful of what it has never tried to understand. Watch the run off credits too for some great photographs – this is a must for anyone interested in gay history. In German and a run time of 102 minutes – this is a simply brilliant film.IMDB Reviewer
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The Circle (2014) Der Kreis
The Circle (2014) Der Kreis
