Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Dreadfully Boring

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I'm write for the first time, because this movie took me to the guts, is so powerful to show how the Human race are bad...I'm live in Switzerland, and in the 70'S same thing happens in my countries... So many young are suffer of child abuse, free violence and death, it is reality, not just a movie... The Switzerland state has apologized for what it is to pass in the 70s only in 2015, and yet enormously young people who have passed through these camps are still today marked in blood...I'm shocked to read the comment of Thomas in this tread, so naive and non-constructive, I thought this poor guy have never see the reality of the world we live... For a German guy it is a crook... I have finally to say, Hitler has better treat his Hitlerian youth than the German government did after the war, it is sad...Do not listen to the negative comments or say that it is exaggerating, they have not understood anything in life... look without hesitation this Powerful movie but hard and realistic on a part of the German history which they should not be proud of...

Thanks Brummund for such an excellent work. There should be more such courageous people who can tell the truth at the face of a super-hypocrite society in which we live. We live in a society which has no shortage of Sadists and very unfortunately children are the softest sufferer. I spent a year and half in a Missionary School in West Bengal, Kolkata. I was luckier than Wolfgang because my mother protected me, she did listen to me when I came home for summer vacations and complained that I will die if I go back to the mission. The film is actually so realistic, unlike what many reviewers here feel. I know that because I had been in a similar institution, though thousands of kilometres away. I remember how cruel had been many people in my locality after I returned from the coveted missionary school. There were many who asked why I returned, some suggested that I was kicked out. So I can understand why Wolfgang hit the neighbour he met on the street after he left him home without meeting his mother. Rest assured that such terrible places are still there in almost every country and will be there as long as we don't properly learn to treat others of our own species respectfully.

"Freistatt" or "Sanctuary" is a German 100-minute movie from last year (2015). For director Marc Brummond and his co-writer Nicole Armbruster, it is probably the most known work of their career so far. But the cast includes some names that have also appeared in more famous project. This refers to lead actor Louis Hofmann, who recently starred in "Die Mitte der Welt", and a couple others I will talk about later on. As for Hofmann, I have no idea why he is being pushed into a role where people want to see him as the next big thing from Germany in terms of acting. I personally feel that he has very little range and his physical acting (in terms of body language and face expressions) feels virtually the exact limited approach in basically every film he is in. And it seems they always write him characters that have to suffer a lot throughout the films. Too bad, he just can't pull it off. So in my opinion, he is one of the reasons why this film here became as bad as it eventually did. Supporting performances here come from prolific actors like Max Riemelt, Alexander Held and Uwe Bohm (from the German Bohm dynasty that has made quite an impact for a long time already), who plays a violent father again, just like he does in faith Akin's new film "Tschick".As for the story, it is very uninspired in my opinions. The problem of the male protagonist at his home are generic and the acting is weak. It's a story and approach that has been done many times, and most of the times a lot better. Then the boy has to go to a boarding school and this is when the film really hits rock-bottom. The events depicted there have absolutely nothing to do with reality and it is impossible that a school like this would exist for more than a couple weeks before somebody intervenes and closes it immediately, maybe puts the head of this institution behind bars. But this is not what happens here. Here we have the violence go over to the young men in there and they start tormenting each other. So yeah, this film is packed with physical and psychological torture, abuse and humiliation from start to finish. The only purpose I see when it comes to the filmmaker's motivation is probably to shock the audience as much as possible in these slightly over 1.5 hours. And hope that the incompetent audience members do not realize that the film lacks any realism and authenticity altogether. Oh yeah, sexual abuse is a part of the film as well, why miss out on that opportunity right? It's almost offensive to victims of sexual abuse and how this film really mocks them with his absurd story lines. And of that isn't bad enough already, lets just throw in an incestuous relationship between mother and son if there is any member left in the audience that isn't disgusted yet by the action. I know I am. Especially because films like this one do not even get made, but also score awards attention that may motivate more filmmakers in the future to come up with garbage like this. 2 stars out of 10 is basically 2 too many. One of the worst films of 2015 for sure and I suggest you stay far far away.

This is an awesome and touching movie overall. The description at the beginning and end of the movie makes it more clear about how such kind of juvenile schools existed throughout the past half century in west Germany. As for the plot, I do think there are some tiny flaws such as Wolfgang's black pal traded cookies and cigarettes with him for protection, however it doesn't make much sense in the rest of the movie. And the whole film is ironic---People who fight for FREEDOM at the beginning are looked on coldly by others and failed, and other people who look coldly upon those freedom fighters achieved their own freedom in the end.