The Greater Freedom

The film “Große Freiheit” (The Greater Freedom) has won over 25 awards, including the Prix du Jury in Cannes, and made it onto the Oscar shortlist for best foreign-language film. We speak to Director Sebastian Meise and actors Georg Friedrich and Thomas Prenn about their feature – and, of course, about love. 

 SLEEK: What was the strongest reaction to your film?

 Sebastian Meise: The strongest reaction was already the premiere in Cannes with the standing ovations, for 10 minutes. 

Georg Friedrich: That was really extreme. I’ve been to many premieres – it didn’t stop. And again afterwards, on the way out. I also met an older Berliner in Cannes who also thanked me so much for the film. He also told me a lot about that time. He was young at that time and experienced everything firsthand. 

S: Such a quiet film and then such a loud reaction. Today of all days, when personal freedom is so hotly debated, there still seems to be a lack of understanding for homosexuality. 

Thomas Prenn: I think in many cases it has to do with the uncertain, the unknown, and I think it’s an unattractive impulse of people to then push that away and not open up, because then you also make yourself vulnerable. And yes of course what we tell in the film, that love is criminalized by the state, is actually unbelievable and very brutal. Maybe an interesting question is also, ‘What are the things in my life that I feel the state is falsely criminalizing?’ That’s an interesting thought. To look at where that’s still taking place today, even in a counterpart.

S: How far would you be willing to go for a conviction that you have? 

TP: Hard to answer, because fortunately I have never been in a comparable, existential situation. But I do believe that love is something that unites us all, that is a supposedly simple feeling that everyone knows and at the same time is something so special and something so great that I would probably fight for it the most. 

S: What is the biggest misunderstanding that can arise about the term ‘love’? 

TP: I believe, or at least I want to, that love is always a quality, not a quantity. And that this is a misunderstanding and that you can’t compare it. Whether I can always make it happen, I don’t know, because that would mean that you have no expectations and that would be the ideal case. 

S: Is there a love that has no expectations? 

TP: I have two brothers, and of course as a child you ask your parents who they like best. And of course they can’t answer it because it’s not a quantity but a quality. I do believe that something like unconditional love exists. But what I find more interesting is what the characters of Franz and Georg do, that love can develop even though people believe that such a thing is not possible, with this inner emotional world and the outer prison world. That it is often more unexpected than one believes. 

S: I believe that a deep, completely connected love is always something unexpected. It’s not the norm, after all. What did you actually do to approach this isolation, this prison? 

SM: It’s very abstract, of course, you don’t know it, fortunately. You try to imagine it, talk to people who have also experienced it, visited many prisons, to get a feeling for it. But in the end, it’s fiction – you can only approximate it. You can also tell a story about a murder without having committed one. 

AP: But can you really work it out so theoretically? Or was there this field of tension to understand: external violence – inner love – social norms – rules – – and then always the human being in the process. You did that so brilliantly through your characters, who you let tell their stories without them finding the words. Because you can’t answer the question “What makes you a prisoner” if you haven’t experienced it. But you can feel it when you’ve talked to someone who was imprisoned because of love. 

SB: Yeah, sure. I can only say it’s one of my biggest nightmares to be in prison. It scares me to death, and I dream about it sometimes. Maybe that’s it – that you can approach it through that fear.

S: The ending is one of the most intelligent, romantic and beautiful in a long time. Did you have a variant in mind? 

SB: The question came up about ending in the black, in the darkroom. 

S: I can well imagine that someone who has been in prison for so long would not be able to find his way outside of it. 

SB: Absolutely, for me the ending has always been ambivalent and I like endings that don’t directly convey a message, but are more open and open to multiple interpretations. And you can see it that way! It’s certainly one facet of the ending. That he no longer has a foothold outside. But you can also see it politically: now he has the freedom to do what he wants and says ‘They’ve destroyed my life!’ and now he’s doing it all the more. Or then the romantic reading. So, there are a couple of readings in there and I think it’s good to have a reason for discussion after a movie! 

Set in postwar Germany, this film by Austrian director Sebastian Miese depicts the life of Hans Hoffmann, a man persecuted and repeatedly imprisoned for being gay. The only steady relationship in his life is with his longtime cellmate Viktor Bix, convicted of murder. Although Hans is initially repulsed by Viktor’s drug addiction, the two men fall in love. A tale chronicling prejudice and adversity, it stars Franz Rogowski, who recently featured in Christian Petzold’s Golden Bear-winning movie, Undine (2020).

As featured in SLEEK 72 – LOVE. Available in Print or Digital here.