Straight (German)

Mostly shot by hand held camera (or at least that's what it seemed like), this film shows the story of 3 individuals who are coming to terms of their individual feels and what effect their feelings will have on the people around them. Did the film succeed in portraying what it set out to? Let's figure it out.

Jana is a lonely social worker. She is in a lackluster and boring relationship with David which has no spark left. David spends most of his time at work and avoids Jana. Whenever he meets her, there is no chemistry and together they are both aware of the drifting chemistry, both physically and emotionally. And then we have a young German Turk Nazim, who also tries hard to keep up the appearance of straightness. Night after night he goes out with his homies, dances with girls like Jana and deals with drugs on Hermann Square. It is first jana who ends up sleeping with him. In a different turn of events, Nazim and David end up sleeping together as well. When the three of them find out he truth about each other, this is when all 3 of them will have to re-evaluate their fascination, love and passion for love and for people around them.

The director focuses on certain things that are not considered as social norms. The fact that Jana hides her job from her parents, Nazim trying to act straight all the time, even bashing up some queers, to the ultimate failure attitude of David, who just flows from one person to another without any emotion. The acting by the actors is thankfully pretty decent specially by Nazim. The concept would have made an excellent short film of 15-20 minutes but the low production and the somewhat extended scenes etc just take away the essence of the film and the fact and the vision that the film maker had.

For a better take on a similar story line, watch another German film 'Drei'. (4/10)