Imagine a brothers Dardenne film of epic length, set in Germany and spiced up with the explicit (and sometimes ugly) sex of Bertolucci: this is today’s Berlinale Competition entry Der freie Wille (The Free Will). Directed by Matthias Glasner and co-written by star Jürgen Vogel, the bleak three-hour story follows Theo (Vogel), whom we see rape and violently abuse an innocent passer-by in the film’s opening section. We soon learn that this is not the first time and he is locked away for almost ten years. Der freie Wille really takes off (for those who have not left after this explicitly ugly introduction) when Theo comes out of prison and tries to get his act together, having to prove time and again that he is capable of resisting the urges that he feels deep inside of him.

What proves most difficult for Theo is his contact with women, because on the one hand he is afraid he might relapse and the other hand he would like to be in a relationship just like everyone else. Of course there is also the problem of telling the people he loves about his background: if they all react badly, he will never be able to build up a new life after such a dark episode. Vogel is outstanding as the aggressor who is also a victim and his rocky relationship with the daughter (Sabine Timoteo) of his new boss (Manfred Zapatka) who knows about his past and apparently has had a difficult past herself is excellently portrayed.

The film does not really earn its enormous running time, as some scenes (including the rape scene in the opening section) could have been trimmed, though Der freie Wille is certainly a daring and unflinching piece of cinema that is a revelatory if not exactly an entertaining way to pass three hours, with Vogel giving a most memorable performance as the morally unhinged protagonist who wants to make amends.

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