This one falls into that darker corner of gay cinema. There was real potential buried in here, but the execution feels so flat that at points it plays out more like a filmed stage play than an actual movie. It's a dark psychological drama built around a street hustler confessing to a brutal, confusing murder of his own lover. Black and white flashback sequences do a solid job laying out the details of what happened, but the real focus stays on the dialogue and the writing itself. Right at the start, a young hustler has already killed his male lover Claude. Three days go by before he calls the police to turn himself in for the murder. But instead of just reporting it somewhere ordinary, he actually summons the police and the local press directly into a judge's private chambers. Yves has keys to the place, which tracks given what he does for a living, but having the press waiting right outside makes the whole scene look like some elaborate blackmail scheme against the judge. The ...
Wow!!. Until I started reading on internet, I had no idea this film was based on a true story. Still, the impact of the film was quite repulsive. Even after reading this, i really did not find anything worth mentioning in the film that could hold your attention.
Fritz Haarmann was a German pedophile and serial killer of young adolescent males during 1919 to 1924 and made nearly 30 victims in only five years of time. Haarmann makes his money by trades food and goods on the black market that he himself falsely confiscated by pretending to be a policeman. This is also how he picks up young lads in the train station and lures them to his apartment loft. He murders the young boys by biting their throats. The atrocities became even more inhuman when Fritz, together with his lover/partner-in-crime Hans Grans, sold the hacked up flesh of the victims on the black market. Haarmann pretty openly declares his affection for young boys and his entire surrounding either deliberately ignores this or even considers it to be the most common thing in the world. Only his neighbor from the apartment below suspects his psychopathic tendencies and attempts to alert the authorities, but that fails as Haarmann actually had connections with the police where he worked as a "rat". The film ends with him being captured.
The film was dark and edgy. Although the subject was gruesome, it really didn't hold my attention. Acting wise I think the main lead did a good job. If you are aware of the true nature of the incident, you might be able to connect with it better.
Just alright. Not my cuppa tea. (2/10)
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