| Even those of you who aren't fanatical fans
of the Nobel Prize-winning Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice"
and "Tonio Kroger" will be enamored by this startling
and revealing documentary that focuses on his two eldest children,
Erika and Klaus.
Both gay, both extremely talented in the arts themselves,
and both outspoken activists against the Nazis and fascism,
Klaus and Erika are homosexual heroes who've been too often
waylaid by queer historians in the past. No more.
Here directors Speck and Weiss intersperse stunning footage
of Germany with photographs of the Manns and interviews with
their friends and relatives, along with dramatizations of
Klaus' gay novels. The result is a vivid picture of what it
was to be a gay bohemian in an era that first embraced you
and then sought to destroy you completely.
Erika, beloved by both men and women, was the stronger of
the siblings. (She, by the way, eventually wed the gay poet
W.H. Auden to gain British citizenship.) Beautiful, intellectual
and brimming with self-certainty, she at times was a playwright,
actress, war journalist and lecturer. Surprisingly, her anti-fascist
stance didn't stop her from being deported from the States
during the McCarthy era.
Klaus, the sensitive one, was a novelist who could never crawl
out from under his father's shadow. ("Mephisto"
became a best seller only long after his death and then was
adapted into a celebrated Oscar-nominated film.) His novels
often dealt with homosexuality, but in a sullen manner. As
James W. Jones notes in "The Gay and Lesbian Literary
Heritage": "in [Klaus'] fiction, same-sex love ends
or bears no hope of success, for those involved switch their
affections to a heterosexual love object, literally succumb
to the futility of such relationships and die, or continue
to suffer a lonely existence." His life mirrored his
art. Klaus turned to drugs and eventually took his own life.
But "Escape to Life" won't make you despair. It's
a stimulating ride, and an often witty one. With its beautifully
edited, sumptuous look at two honorable lives that tried to
rise above the atrocities of their time, this effort is never
less than inspiring -- and entertaining.
-- Brandon Judell |
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