Colonel Redl (1985)

Original title

Oberst Redl

Directed by

István Szabó

Genre

drama film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, Hungary

Runtime

2h 24m

Rated

12

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 53 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An ambitious officer from a poor background climbs the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian military before World War I. His secret homosexuality puts him at risk in a rigid empire that eventually leads to his destruction.

tensesombertragicatmosphericslow-burnmelancholicpoliticalintimate

What happens

Colonel Redl (German: Oberst Redl (original title); Hungarian: Redl ezredes) is a 1985 biographical drama film by Hungarian director István Szabó. The plot, set in the period before World War I, follows the rise of Alfred Redl, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Redl, who comes from a humble background, enters military school as a boy and an illustrious military career comes his way by virtue of his loyalty to the crown. He is appointed the head of an intelligence-gathering unit, but his attraction to men eventually causes his downfall. The screenplay, loosely inspired by British playwright John Osborne's play A Patriot for Me, charts the rise of inter-ethnic tensions in Austro-Hungary, which were to bring about the assassination in Sarajevo and the empire's eventual disintegration. The film stars Klaus Maria Brandauer, Jan Niklas and Gudrun Landgrebe. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1985. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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