A press release in this morning from Benten Films breaks news that the upstart DVD company has signed a deal to release The Free Will (Der Freie Will), the controversial Silver Bear winner from the 2006 Berlin Film Festival. Clocking in at 163 minutes, with a first act featuring a real-time rape scene, Mattias Glasner’s film was celebrated by juries and bloggers during its Festival run, but deemed by Variety to be all but unreleasable. It’s a bold move for the Benten team, a sign that their scope is much wider than the M-word associations of their first three releases (LOL, Dance Party USA/Quiet City, and the upcoming The Guatemalan Handshake). Check a clip from The Free Will above. The DVD will be available in late July June.
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Congratulations to Benten, for scoring one of the most gut-wrenching (and good) European films of this decade.
A 150 minute portrait of an incurable rapist may not be anyone’s idea of fun - but cinema is not only fun. It can be an open window into the human soul; both the dark and bright alleys. I’ve rarely felt so bad after seeing a film, but I’ve seen very few films that’ve stayed with me, resonating and lingering, for so long.
Der freie wille teaches us all something about love, humanity and life’s unbearable evils. With a main character capable of the most gruesome of actions, it is amazing that director Glasner manages to show us how - not even in a rapist - evil is never the lone facet in a human being.
Someone told me that this was a German remake of “Free Willy”, but now I’m not sure if that’s true.