Free Fall aka Freier Fall

Things start to spiral out of control when Kay is transferred to the same Police Unit as Marc, and the men are literally thrown together.  However after Bettina gives birth to their son, Marc is determined to fix what he sees as the errors of his ways and become a good father, so he gives up Kay.  For a very short while anyway. Soon after, Kay is exposed as being gay and this becomes common knowledge at the Police Station where he is relentlessly taunted by another colleague (who is obviously a latent homosexual himself). One day when Kay gets involved in a fight in the Station’s canteen, Marc jumps in to rescue him from being beaten up and ends up in hospital himself. And suddenly this triggers off the exposure of their affair which can no longer be hidden.

This rather compelling debut feature from writer/director Stephan Lacant about forbidden love in a very rampant homophobic community tells the story through Marc’s eyes and is overly sympathetic to his quandary and confusion.  Poor Bettina is portrayed not as a victim of her boyfriend’s dalliance with Kay and his struggle with being honest with himself, but she is insensitively shown as being more of an obstacle in his path. The relationship between the two men is almost completely physical (and some of the sex was a little too unrealistic) and there is scant attention to any emotional feelings between them. It’s not just pretty clear from almost the word go that someone in this triangle is bound to be hurt, but the likelihood that none of them will end up with what they want, is soon so much more than a mere possibility.

Very well written, and beautifully acted by the three leads Hanno Koffler, Max Riemelt,  and Katharina Schüttler, its very easy to see why ‘Free Fall’ was a big hit with audiences on the Film Festival circuit last year.