Free Fall - Freier Fall

[morrobay]

From the comments: Kay was supposed to be hidden and mysterious. He just shows up in Marc's life. All the questions: how much time between the scenes, how often, how long, etc. wasn't important. The scenes showed the actual status, not the time it took.

But because we are shown so few scenes of them happy together (actually only 2, before it starts to go downhill), the relationship itself is a mystery, and that’s frustrating for me.  Were they really only happy twice?  We see them more miserable than happy.  

The only 2 times we see them when they really enjoy being together: at Kay’s apartment when he gives him the key, and even then Marc acts as if it’s no big deal (dammit, Marc!), and at the club.

The scene when they are running, silent, is so hard for me to watch, you just know the happy times are over already.

Then it’s a matter of Marc backing away and coming back, and never once thinking how that affects Kay. When Kay asks if he’s ever going to tell Bettina, Mark leaves.  He backs away when he hits Kay, and then comes back to him when they have the argument in Kay’s apartment.  He backs away and comes back to him in the same minute, at the hospital when he closes him off, then asks to be kissed.  

I know, I know; this is not a happily-ever-after movie, and I appreciate that, and I love it anyway.  But can’t we know a little more about the good times? (they don’t even have to be naked    ) The happy times they had together that made the bad times worth putting up with? (oh, man, bad grammar).

They can make all this up to me in part 2, when they go back and recap the whole affair, before going on to what happens, and if Marc goes after Kay (of course he does).

[morrobay]

So, in the fourth deleted scene Marc and Frank have been drinking together.

Jeez, don't you just love how guys treat the whole planet as a big toilet?   

[fritzkep]

Did watch the movie yesterday, not the gut punch that BBM was, but still a powerful movie.

Only watched it once, so I don't have the depth of observation that y'all have yet. Still, I was struck at how many scenes reminded me of BBM. Such as when Marc sat tired at the edge of a bed, and the girlfriend approached him from the back and put her hand over his chest. A number of other moments like this, but this one struck me.

[morrobay]

Bettina coming up behind him is one of the very few likenesses.  The more you watch, the more you'll see.

And there are many sequences that make this movie "its own", apart from Brokeback.  Its great in its own right.......

I understand the reasons to compare, but this movie stands on its own.

[fritzkep]

That's for sure!

[morrobay]

I apologize if my comment sounded defensive.  Vincent and I were talking a few pages back about 2 other scenes we both agreed were similar to Brokeback.
When Marc is trying to clean the paint out of the carpet and sits back against the wall, is like the alley scene, when Ennis breaks down.  And in the locker room when Limpinski beats him up - it's a little like the fight scene when Ennis gets beat up in front of the bar, after Alma tells him she knows the truth.

[mariska]

Hi nancy, you sounded a little defensive  , but don't apologize because you are right: free fall is totally different and stands on his own. I will post on this later, takes me some time to translate in understandable english..

[fritzkep]

Quite correct. It's just that having seen BBM so many times and FF only once, the similarities really stand out!

[gattaca]

Hi Mariska,
thank you so much for explaining the deleted scenes for me.  I found all 6, but they have Russian subtitles!!  So your explanations really helped.  

you're so right about the scene in the bowling alley.  I could hear Marc say "Engel", so I knew when they started talking about him, and then he just quietly fell apart.  

I put the link for the 6 deleted scenes with Russian subs below anyway.

http://vk.com/video-39818588_167204733

Thanks for posting these!  Two of them I had not seen and Mariska, Thanks for the English translations!  Cheers, V.

[mariska]

  He's TORN with his family responsibilities.  He cannot abandon his new born baby and his son's mother - "we didn't raise you like this.."  It's a commitment he's cemented once Bettina became pregnant and his son was born.  If the pregnancy and then baby were not part of the story, it would have been simpler for Marc and Bettina to go separate ways with no strings, no commitments for at least the next 18 years.   The desire to be parts of your child's life is overwhelming for most.  But then again, this conflict is central to the story.  V

Exactly. This conflict is central to the story. And to my opinion that's the biggest difference with BBM. There are similarities, but only superficially. As I’ve experienced BBM, the homophobia is central, the reason why the love between the  2 guys was impossible. In freier fall, the homophobic environment and Marc's inner confusion about his feelings for another man play a role but are not the essence of the story. If Kay had been another woman, the conflict  would be the same (partially).
Think of Marc’s words to Kay: I’ve become a father. How can I leave Bettina and the baby?
That’s his conflict.

I don’t understand why FF is called “the German BBM”, I really think these are two very diffent movies.
I read an interesting review. Here’s part of it:

“”Even more inappropriate was the the unhappy ending. Brokeback Mountain's unhappy ending was credible and authentic because the movie took place in the 1950s. This one doesn't.

We've had decades of gay movies that almost always end badly. One or both characters are murdered, or die of AIDS, or chose to live a lie. If the filmmaker's intention here was to avoid a cliché, then they got it all backwards. The happy ending is a cliché in straight movies. In gay movies, it's still a revolutionary act. It's a bold, political assertion that yes, true happiness can be found in same-sex relationships.

If there was a pro-gay message to the movie, the ending undermined it completely. If it wasn't for the nudity and the fairly explicit scenes of gay sex, the usual suspects would be recommending this movie as a must-see moral tale of how the "homosexual lifestyle" ruins families and leads to self-destruction.”


Of course, not everyone likes the movie.
But I wonder why this person thinks the ending is inappropriate? The movie is realistic (as far as the conflict situation concerns) and the end is realistic. How can this movie have a happy end? “Bye bye Bettina and newborn son, I’m going to live happily ever after with another love?”. In a situation like this there’s always loss and drama. In reviews like these I totally miss the empathy with Bettina and even with Marc as husband/father.
All I wrote doesn’t hold me back from wanting a part two with hopefully a new start for Kay and Marc. After all the end of the movie was not that bad. Marc was free and seemed to have accepted himself.  If this would be a real life situation it’s not onthinkable he would go after Kay