The early days of gay rights are lovingly, clunkily presented in director Stefan Haupt’s docudrama about Swiss gay magazine the Circle. Launched in 1942, it was smuggled thoughout Europe and offered advice, entertainment and erotica for people in countries where homosexuality was still illegal. Haupt cuts between contemporary interviews with Röbi and Ernst, a couple who orbited the magazine’s staff, and a shonkily acted drama about the start of their relationship. The magazine presented a high-minded ideal of homosexuality as close friendship, removed from public salaciousness. Haupt’s film is less polite, but Röbi and Ernst’s courting is still not particularly sexy. Seventy-something Röbi opens the film in drag, singing brazenly about his love for “rare plants that grow south of the border”. More of his real-life vivacity would have made The Circle a more satisfactory whole.
