Directed by Frank Ripploh. Starring Frank Ripploh, Bernd Broaderup. Club, QFT, Belfast, 95 min.
'DON'T BE afraid if I take you along to public restrooms or the baths," warns the hero of Taxi zum Klo (Taxi to the Toilet). It's pre-AIDS West Germany, and the Boys Keep Swinging.
By day, Frank is an ordinary bearded “tired, neurotic, polymorphous perverse teacher”; by night, he’s a poster boy for the frisky Berlin once frequented by David Bowie and Romy Haag. It’s just not good enough for long-suffering boyfriend Bernd, who yearns for long walks in the snow, evenings with jigsaw puzzles and domesticity.
Still, Frank is not inclined to curb his exuberant hedonism. Trussed up in leather and hopped up on LSD, he characteristically waves Bernd goodbye for the evening with the superfluous announcement: “Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be late tonight.”
Hailed by the Village Voiceas "the first masterpiece about the mainstream of male gay life", Taxi zum Klohas long enjoyed a reputation as a fascinatingly dirty picture. Arriving hot on the heels of a new wave of gay-themed movies, including Derek Jarman's Sebastianeand William Friedkin's Cruising– Frank Ripploh's joyfully seedy 1980 classic was swiftly swooped on by US customs and denied a general release in the UK.
For all its explicit content (yes, the famous golden shower sequence has been fully restored) the film has taken on the quaint fustiness of a historical document. The film-maker’s semi- autobiographical exploits around glory holes, cottaging mash-ups, and handlebar moustaches amount to a chronicle of freer times and funkier people.
An X-rated Christopher Isherwood and genuine auteur, Ripploh teases out the early tensions between gay respectability and gay abandon in a series of giddy, profane dramatic acts. He possessed sufficient charisma to simultaneously write, direct, star, and get a rectal exam on camera.
We told you it was a dirty picture.
