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Sadly Over-hyped

As Good As It Gets

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Circle seems like an unusually well-made home movie, like a 60th anniversary present from an extraordinarily rich and generous friend. It tells the personal story of an old gay Swiss couple through interviews with them and amazingly effective reenactments of their experiences in the mid-1950s in Zurich. They aren't particularly interesting people, but the movie is so well made that it's entertaining anyway.As a documentary of Switzerland's uniquely civilized history of homophobia it's a curiosity at best, like an inside look at the interpersonal relationships between employees at a flower shop. If the worst that ever happened was a threat of forced outing, then Swiss gays have a lot to be grateful for and always did.

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.

Der Kreis is a Swiss movie shown in the U.S. with the title The Circle (2014). It's directed and co- written by Stefan Haupt. In Zurich, in 1958, a young gay teacher (Ernst) falls in love with a beautiful gay singer (Robi). Gay relationships were legal in Switzerland at the time, but discretion was still required. Ernst and Robi were members of The Circle, which was an organization of gay men. The Circle organized social events and published a magazine. They didn't disturb the social order, and the police didn't disturb them.However, in retrospect, the police were waiting for an excuse to cause trouble for gays. Suddenly, using the excuse of several murders among the gay community, the police got tough. They raided legal events, and arrested people who weren't guilty of any crime. This put the pressure on The Circle, and the film follows these events.The best part of the documentary is that Ernst and Robi are still alive, still a couple, and were willing to be part of the movie. So, the re-creations we see aren't just hypothetical. They are informed by the participation of people who were there.In my mind, this was the best film we saw as part of the superb Rochester ImageOut LGBT Film Festival. We saw it on the large screen at the Little Theatre, but it will work well on DVD.

While there is still a lot of homophobia and a lot of discrimination against gay people in general, this documentary does focus on a magazine that was developed and delivered so that people would not have to expose themselves. Nowadays with Internet and whatnot, it is obviously a lot easier to do that, but it is a true testament to time and will, to see what some people had to go through to reach a certain kind of freedom to express themselves.I hadn't heard of that particular magazine and had no clue what the movie was about, when I watched it at the Festival in Berlin. So while I was surprised by the topic itself, I have to admit, the movie itself is very well done. Nicely shot and edited, with lots of Interviews and people remembering what it was like, it does get you into that mindset ... Watch if you're not "afraid"