Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Sam Molloy A true story told well. Like the movie "The Pianist", you really get a feeling of how it was to be there. Berlin, and Munich and some other German cites were quite tolerant of Gays throughout the '20's and Germany had the highest levels of education in the world at the time. From this distance it's hard to imagine how the rise of the Nazis could have happened, and movies like this make it real to today's viewers. Of course opposition to Hitler in the 1930's was not as solid here and in England as is portrayed by most of today's history books. Nor is it safe to assume that something similar could not happen again, although likely in a different form than seen among modern NeoNazis. Something that seems so right to most people at the time. It has been said that insanity is rare in individuals but quite common in groups.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU It is supposed to be a true story that happened to a young man later remembered or rather recollected by the same man grown quite older, some forty years later. It happens around 1933 in Berlin centering on Hitler's arrival to power.The young English, aristocratic man from England, Christopher Isherwood, goes to Berlin to meet with the young men available there most of the time for a price. He will let himself roll and rock in this atmosphere though he will be very hostile to the exchange of money that he will always refuse in his mind. That will lead him to confronting one of his regular lovers and that lover will plainly disappear after that confrontation, only to be met against in the brown uniform of the SA though identified as a SS uniform.He does not understand that in the crisis in Germany in 1933 many young men who had no work chose to make the surviving money they needed by renting their bodies for a short moment to other men, generally older men, for a small amount of money, since they could not rent their bodies to an employer who would make a profit out of it by investing their work in the production of goods. Morally, socially and even physically there is no difference. Christopher does not understand there is no love in that exchange. Nothing but a commercial action of sheer survival.And the only choice they have if they do not want to go on or to start that "professional" activity is to join the SS, the SA, the Nazi Party and make a living by crushing the lives of others, Jews, merchants, gays, or whatever – mind you not whoever – is in the way of their getting rid of as many millions of people possible to make the misery and poverty of the others just one iota better.He will though find the love he is looking for. But he will not be able to keep him in Great Britain after the arrival of Hitler because a British civil servant will understand the sexual dimension of the attachment and refuse the visa. That will end badly for that young German, Heinz, in the hands of the Gestapo, with one year of forced labor and two years in the army.That could have been a good though sad end, but the author morbidly goes one step further in his self-accusation. He goes back to Berlin in 1952 and meets the people who have survived Hitler. His landlady, for one, who makes him a present. And of course Heinz who lives in East Berlin though the Wall has not been built yet. Without giving the details of that end, it reveals how deep the uncaring carelessness of Christopher in 1933 has become a selfish nostalgia that turns the uncaring carelessness into a blunt rejection.The film is well done, shows the atmosphere in Germany in 1933, though rather superficially, but it reveals the extreme egotism of that man who only considered Berlin as a hunting ground and revisits it when the raptor, vulture and predator he has been has found his balance in the evanescent scintillating world of Hollywood.A sad, very sad vision of these aristocrats who can do what they want, provided they satisfy their desires in a lower social strata than theirs. Oscar Wilde (shown burning in Berlin) did the reverse and could not be accepted: he, a plebeian Irishman, who captured the passion of a young English Lord. Social, aristocratic divide breaking, ethnic and national rebellious crime against at the time Her Majesty's supreme aristocracy. To prison and then banned from proper English society, though the young Lord pays no price, of course not.We have in this film the reverse situation and it reveals the extreme self-centered blindness of the author at the time of events.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Stella Adhisurya Christopher and His Kind is not a heartfelt, moving film about homophobia and homosexuals being persecuted by the Nazis. However, it is a movie about a gay writer who travels to a war- torn Berlin all for the sake of boys. The main character, Christopher, goes to Berlin in search for freedom (and gay, gay sex) from his safe hometown of London giving up being a doctor in return for sexual freedom and promiscuity. Is it vain, you may ask. Yes. Is it reckless? Completely. Is it completely stupid considering there's a war going on in Berlin? Of course. And does Christopher completely ignore this and go on crusading and falling in love? Yep. To understand this movie you must first understand Isherwood, there is a reason why they chose Matt Smith and not bloody Johnny Depp. You should watch this movie and see for yourself, it's humor and optimism set on a backdrop of war and genocide. If you want a poignant, moving story on homosexuality in the midst of the Nazis, go watch something else. This is a lighthearted look into Christoph Isherwood's mind and motives, a biography, not a history book.TL;DR: It's funny, it's gay, it's insightful and inspiring. It's not heartfelt, moving or depressing, but it is kind of incredible.

reeceindie Inspired by Christopher Isherwood's 1976 autobiography of the same name Christopher and his Kind accomplishes it's greatest challenge in depicting the events and sights that would eventually inspire 1972's Cabaret, without actually imitating or reiterating the iconic Oscar-winner. BBC2's first-class feature-length dramatisation of Isherwood's formative years brilliantly presents the characters, proceedings, and atmosphere of 'thirties Berlin in embryonic form. The wonderfully witty screenplay smartly focuses on the Isherwoods' first travels to Berlin in 1931 and 1933, where both the romanticised sexual freedoms and the threat of fascism are seamlessly integrated into this snapshot of the inter-war years. Told retrospectively from an aging Isherwood, the film begins with the barely-published author taking the train to Berlin, at the urging of friend, WH Auden. Wisely, Isherwood is never portrayed as just a writer or observer, only briefly seen at the typewriter, and the film overcomes many of the obstacles in creating dramas based on writers to the extent that the publication of Isherwood's book 'Sally Bowles' remains just a passing reference, and receives little fanfare. Matt Smith is effortlessly perfect in the role of Isherwood displaying the ease with which Isherwood integrates himself into the sexual underground and 'divine decadence' of the club scene. If it was Smith's hope that this performance would inspire audiences to temporarily forget about his other BBC work then he has surely succeeded. Smith is perfectly accompanied by Toby Jones, as his rough-trade-loving neighbour and an impeccable Lindsey Duncan as his thoroughly British mother. Imogen Poots occupies the most difficult role as the proto-Sally Bowles, Jean Ross, all green fingernails and lousy torch-songs, a gift for any actress. Isherwood leaves Germany when it becomes clear that to stay would be fatal and unsuccessfully attempts to bring his German boyfriend back to Britain. The film closes with a brief post-war reunion between the two former lovers, and the difference between the two is made clear. Heinz, his German lover, is now married with a child and Christopher, as we know, is on the verge of being embraced by a burgeoning gay movement and meeting the man with whom he'll spend the rest of his life.