Rating: 
Summary: i wanted more...
Review: The truth about homosexual persecution in Nazi Germany told by 6 survivors, using real footage from the times and documentary/interview style storytelling.
I find it interesting how they only targeted gay men. Nazis declared lesbianism a "temporary and curable problem."
Anyway, an interesting little documentary... not enough substance to it though in my opinion- although that might be because none of the men wanted to talk about their experiences. I imagine they get tired of all the interviews and having to relive those things..."Do you want butter or guns?"
And the people cried "Guns!"
And at that my Father became afraid."
Rating: 
Summary: THE BASHING OF GAY MEN BY THE NAZI REGIME...
Review: This is a beautifully executed documentary that is approached with great sensitivity. An official selection of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the film is named after Paragraph 175, Germany's anti-sodomy law, which was enacted in 1871 and was gender specific to males. It is this statute upon which the Nazi regime relied to round up homosexual men for internment in its infamous concentration camps. Once interned, they were reduced to wearing the now infamous "pink triangle" to herald their homosexuality. This documentary focuses on poignant reminiscences by the handful of homosexual men, now in their eighties and nineties, as well as one elderly lesbian who had managed to escape from Germany to England, who survived their experiences, were still alive at the time of filming, and willing to talk about this painful time in their lives. Their stories, sensitively handled by interviewer and historian Klaus Muller, are coupled with wonderful archival footage of a Germany of long ago, and come to life under the expert hands of directors Jerry Friedman and Rob Epstein. The film discusses Weimar Germany's tolerance of homosexuality in the post World War I era, which tolerance continued up until the time the Nazis took control of the country. Berlin was a mecca for homosexuals before the Nazis took over, and Paragraph 175 was largely ignored. The film is highly successful in capturing the joie de vivre of that era, with wonderful archival film footage, stills, and music of a pre-Adolph Hitler Berlin, interspersed with clips of Marlene Dietrich in the film "The Blue Angel" (1931). The use of that film, as well as its signature song "Falling In Love Again", is a perfect marriage with this documentary, as it captures the flavor of the Weimar Republic before Adolph Hitler cast his shadow upon it. The film shows how the Nazi regime stealthily encroached upon the tolerance that had been so pervasive, rendering gay Berlin a thing of the past, no longer a mecca for homosexuals. Its rigid application of Paragraph 175 was the end of an era of tolerance. It was replaced by the persecution of and intolerance for Germany's homosexual men. The film, narrated by Rupert Everett, is a brief ode to the suffering of this segment of Germany's population, but it is, nonetheless, a powerful one. The DVD is limited in terms of bonus features. It does, however, provide two additional interviews with concentration camp survivors who shed more light on the treatment of homosexuals during the Nazi era, as well as an insightful and intelligent film commentary by the directors and producer.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful, defiant, angry, joyous
Review: This is a magnificent piece of documentary filmmaking, not only from the perspective of the production values, but especially of the reportage. It is made clear throughout the documentary how extraordinarily difficult it was to get the extremely elderly men who were the survivors of the Holocaust to think back to what must have been a horrifying period in their lives. The producers managed to get through, however, sometimes with the help of friends, sometimes on their own, and the effect is a devastating one. I cannot agree with the reviewer from Louisiana who carped about "too many Nazi movies". First of all, the Holocaust is a horror which must never be forgotten, and there is no point at which there will be too much information about a "civilized" Western European country which slaughtered millions upon millions upon millions of people at a time which is still in the living memory of countless Europeans, Americans and other citizens of the world. Second, I would have a hard time in coming up with any short list, let alone long list of written, audio or video material which treats the specific subject of the extermination of gay people in Hitler's camps. Gay men were one of the secondary groups of slaughter, of course, in comparison to the breathtaking horror that was visited upon the Jews, but they were a major group nevertheless, and if the critic in Louisiana thinks that this is a story that does not need telling, then I'm sorry, but he's wrong. It does need telling, and the point to this documentary is that not many more years will pass before all of those who survived the terror are gone, gone, gone. The fact that the Holocaust is a throbbing and living thing even in the lives of people in the late 20th and early 21st century was neatly encapsulated in "Paragraph 175" when, if I understood it correctly, a French interviewee said that the interview was the first time that he had ever spoken to a German since World War II. "Paragraph 175" brought tears to my eyes again and again, because I had to ask, again and again, "why, why in God's name, why?" Whether Nazi atrocities have been treated in the media to a greater, lesser, more significant or any other extent than the atrocities of Stalin's Gulag (and as a Latvian, I am perfectly aware of what Stalin did, thank you) is entirely not the point. No human terror can be measured up against any other. This was terror. This was pain. But the survivors also represent a point of joy. They did survive. They had something to say. "Paragraph 175" allowed them to say it. I think that we are better for the story having been told.
Rating:
Summary: Painful, defiant, angry, joyous
Review: This is a magnificent piece of documentary filmmaking, not only from the perspective of the production values, but especially of the reportage. It is made clear throughout the documentary how extraordinarily difficult it was to get the extremely elderly men who were the survivors of the Holocaust to think back to what must have been a horrifying period in their lives. The producers managed to get through, however, sometimes with the help of friends, sometimes on their own, and the effect is a devastating one. I cannot agree with the reviewer from Louisiana who carped about "too many Nazi movies". First of all, the Holocaust is a horror which must never be forgotten, and there is no point at which there will be too much information about a "civilized" Western European country which slaughtered millions upon millions upon millions of people at a time which is still in the living memory of countless Europeans, Americans and other citizens of the world. Second, I would have a hard time in coming up with any short list, let alone long list of written, audio or video material which treats the specific subject of the extermination of gay people in Hitler's camps. Gay men were one of the secondary groups of slaughter, of course, in comparison to the breathtaking horror that was visited upon the Jews, but they were a major group nevertheless, and if the critic in Louisiana thinks that this is a story that does not need telling, then I'm sorry, but he's wrong. It does need telling, and the point to this documentary is that not many more years will pass before all of those who survived the terror are gone, gone, gone. The fact that the Holocaust is a throbbing and living thing even in the lives of people in the late 20th and early 21st century was neatly encapsulated in "Paragraph 175" when, if I understood it correctly, a French interviewee said that the interview was the first time that he had ever spoken to a German since World War II. "Paragraph 175" brought tears to my eyes again and again, because I had to ask, again and again, "why, why in God's name, why?" Whether Nazi atrocities have been treated in the media to a greater, lesser, more significant or any other extent than the atrocities of Stalin's Gulag (and as a Latvian, I am perfectly aware of what Stalin did, thank you) is entirely not the point. No human terror can be measured up against any other. This was terror. This was pain. But the survivors also represent a point of joy. They did survive. They had something to say. "Paragraph 175" allowed them to say it. I think that we are better for the story having been told.
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