Streets of Berlin, I must leave you soon… “The Inclination” by Sean Mathias is a film adaptation of Martin Sherman’s play, written in the 70s and successfully performed at theater venues first in New York, and then in London. The first 15 minutes of the tape can be regarded as a full-fledged curtsey towards the Broadway primary source: the theatrical action is practically devoid of static figures, the scenery is oversaturated with elements of scenographic aesthetics, the costumes are emphatically provocative, and the look now and then clings to unusual props. The endless transgender bacchanalia at the sodomite ball blossoms with motley blotches of promiscuity. Against the background of industrial designs, vintage furniture and asceticism of brick walls, in the entourage, more consistent with modern art studios than the underground gay clubs of the Third Reich, in the alcoholic-cocaine haze, the Apollon-like outcasts of the pure-blooded Aryan race juicily sniff with freedom-loving phalluses between the hot buttocks of their fellows. Underground LGBT goddess Greta in a chic black and red dress swims out from somewhere above through a soft beam, hanging legs from a shiny hoop, and in the voice of Mick Jagger penetratingly sings a sad prophetic song about abandoned Berlin streets. And then — boom! — stormtroopers: someone for fun will be stabbed like a milk pig, someone will have time to escape, someone will find a way to negotiate, and someone will be transported to Dachau with a pink patch on his chest along with the rest of the non-termens. And there will be no more theatricality, no sexual pleasures, no bright colors.
Homosexuality itself is a dangerous enemy for any totalitarian regime. And it's not that someone dreams too much about other people's dicks or likes to turn on rear-wheel drive. Courage in the fierce and sharp eyes of ideological control is, above all, promiscuity, freethinking, and protest. And no eugenic theory, in general, does not change the obvious fact that gray mass is much easier to manage. Max and Horst, eager to find the last support in each other, break the system at the level of their own worldview. Unable to combat the murderous reality of the camp, they invent their own. One in which there is a place for friendship, devotion, affectionate touch, human warmth and sincere love. In essence, physical homosexuality is no longer observed after the initial scenes. But we see verbal homosexuality, which turns out to be surprisingly sensual and soulful, not vulgarized by an unconventional coitual visual. In other words, all art means are designed to convince a homophobic public that in order for two men to have genuine feelings, they do not need to get into a gas pipeline. True love—pure, devoted, sacrificial—exists beyond gender, age, and sexual orientation. This is not just a movie about faggots and the horrors of concentration camps. The Inclination is the story of the martyrdom of two human souls born in the wrong country at the wrong time. It is a symbol of the general civilizational tragedy of a global society in which inequality and discrimination of all varieties and colors still flourish. But in order not to spread the review of the hypnotoad spot of toleration, it is worth considering that in the film the accents are placed sensitively and without inflections: gays as a social group are drawn not by fluffy dandelions, but quite realistic, moderately vile lechers with a special culture of behavior and communication. The main issue is the incommensurability of bullying, which fell to the lot of citizens who do not meet the standard of a full-fledged healthy Aryan. The apogee of this is the extreme cruelty, and most importantly, the absolute senselessness of hard labor, which is burdened by love prisoners. Day by day, stone by stone, back and forth, with no hope for the future. From the raucous whispers of Clive Owen, from the tears flowing down the earthy face of Loter Bluto, from their trembling lips uttering words of mutual love, the heart cannot help but shrink (yes, it is, not what you might have thought). Through the efforts of Philip Glass, the long torment and momentary joys of the heroes echo in soulful music with weeping string parts.
It is noteworthy that sometimes peering into the faces of people on the screen and catching painfully familiar features in them is a task comparable in complexity to the folk fun of "find the cat in the photo." "Gendalph" Ian McKellen - at the time of filming is not yet gray or white, but is already quite blue - tactfully appears for a couple of minutes to dilute youth debauchery as a solid intelligent gay. Under the mask of an episodic stormtrooper hides a young and unrecognizable Jude Law, and having no close-up Gestapo Paul Bettany as if accidentally remains the nameless captain, despite the key importance of his figure in the denouement of the film – say, here it is, the personification of the vile and blatantly cruel Nazi regime, which has no human face.
NC-17 on the cover of "Inclination" looks like some kind of bad mockery. In the remainder: instead of the predicted porn revelations of the outrageous gay drama - an honest, emotional and touching film about love, from which dirt and vulgarity are maxed out, where perversions are an order of magnitude less than in many "heterosexual" melodramas with more gentle age restrictions. Dear MPAA, your conservatism upsets pederasts.