Sanctuary [Freistatt] **** (2015, Louis Hofmann, Alexander Held, Stephan Grossmann, Katharina Lorenz, Max Riemelt, Uwe Bohm, Langston Uibel) – Classic Movie Review 12,719

The 2015 German film Sanctuary [Freistatt] is a complex, excellent drama, with Louis Hofmann brilliant as earnest young tearaway Wolfgang, who is sent off by his family in summer 1968 to the awful Church Welfare Institution ‘sanctuary’.

‘One thing is clear for Wolfgang: His yearning for freedom, he will not soon be buried in the peat bog.’

Writer/ director Marc Brummund’s 2015 German film Sanctuary [Freistatt] is a complex, gruelling, excellent drama, with Louis Hofmann brilliant as 14-year old earnest tearaway Wolfgang (‘Wolfi’), who is sent off by his family in the summer of 1968 to the secluded, awful Church Welfare Institution ‘sanctuary’, where he is basically beaten and tortured emotionally and physically, along with the other boys imprisoned there. The boys spend their days in hard work in the peat mire, carving out bricks of peat from the peat bogs that surround the sanctuary prison home.

It’s a home from home, as his mother doesn’t really give a damn and his step-father (Uwe Bohm) is violently abusive. Not only the overseers but also the other boys turn violently against him. However, Wolfgang’s spirit will not be beaten. He learns to fight violently back. One boy wants to be his friend, the Afro-German lad Anton (played by Langston Uibel), in a place where there are no friends. This proves dangerous as Wolfgang is a loner, and he has the power of one.

Unfortunately that excellent actor Max Riemelt has very little to do in an underwritten role as the overseer ‘brother’ Bruder Krapp, who shows some kindness and understanding to the pupils, but at Christmas Eve is suddenly made to leave the home, apparently having sexually abused the weaker, more sensitive pupil Mattis. Ironically Mattis is then devastated, and Krapp is replaced by a useless, ineffectual successor, which only allows more unchecked physical abuse of the boys.

But Alexander Held as housefather Hausvater Brockmann and Stephan Grossmann as the overseer ‘brother’ Bruder Wilde both have a field day as the ‘sanctuary’ main villains, both ‘good Christians’. The Brockmann character is an interesting villain, a silkily sinister presence, who is sometimes incredibly sadistic and other times is a saving presence for Wolfgang. Wilde, as his name suggests, is a full-on villain, the kind we are waiting to see get his comeuppance. The step-father gets his comeuppance too, though it is just reported, and even plays like a plot device (though a satisfying one).

There’s one other important character. Wolfgang gets interested in Angelika, the daughter of the housefather, with predictably disastrous consequences. She is another ambiguous character, like her father, so the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree there.

Filming style and photography are very Sixties, along with the score and music, in a slightly experimental way that pays off. Extraordinarily, it is shot on the actual locations, now reformed apparently. It gains a lot from this. It’s amazing that Church Welfare Institution have embraced their shocking past so completely as to agree to this location shooting. Quite extraordinary. When watching the film, always bear in mind these are the real locations.

The film is quite upsetting and troubling, a bit gruelling in places, though encouraging along the way and ultimately moving, with Wolfgang’s will to survive, his physical and mental strength and his need for freedom always in the forefront of the movie. The film is packed with incident and heads purposefully for an ending that is most satisfying and uplifting. Like Wolfgang, we haven’t lived through all this ghastly mess for nothing. There is a lot to digest, a great deal to think about, with this demanding, commanding movie.

The cast are Louis Hofmann as Wolfgang, Alexander Held as Hausvater Brockmann, Stephan Grossmann as Bruder Wilde, Katharina Lorenz as Ingrid, Max Riemelt as Bruder Krapp, Uwe Bohm as Heinz, and Langston Uibel as Anton.

There were minor but encouraging awards for the young star. Louis Hofmann won the 2015 Bavarian Film Prize as Best Newcomer Actor and the 2016 German Actors Award (Deutscher Schauspielerpreis) in the newcomer category.

The film did less well. Sanctuary [Freistatt] was one of eight films shortlisted by Germany to be their submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but lost to Labyrinth of Lies, which made the December Oscar shortlist of nine films but was not nominated.

Sanctuary runs 104 minutes.

Louis Hofmann (born 3 June 1997) played the lead in the 2011 German film Tom Sawyer and won the Bodil Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a teenage German prisoner of war in the 2015 Danish film Land of Mine. He stars in the 2022 film The Forger.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,719

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