Taxi to the loo

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Movie
Original title Taxi to the loo
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1980
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Frank Ripploh
script Frank Ripploh
production Frank Ripploh,
Horst Schier ,
Laurens Straub
music Hans A. Wittstatt
camera Horst Schier
cut Gela-Marina Runne ,
Matthias von Gunten
occupation

Taxi zum Klo is a feature film by the director Frank Ripploh , shot in 1980. Ripploh allegedly truthfully filmed part of his own life as a gay teacher in Berlin .

action

Frank, called Peggy by friends, is a teacher and Bernd works in the cinema. Bernd loves life more quietly and also wants a farm, Frank, on the other hand, is looking for adventure, longing and explores his limits. So they live past each other, although they live and sleep together.

His students like Frank, and the colleagues at the bowling evening rumor drunkenly about him: "He has men visiting, Mr. Ripploh."

Frank is out and about day and night in Berlin, mostly with his old Karmann. He's addicted to all kinds of men, blondes, mickey, great cops, leather guys, muscled guys, and having sexual adventures with them. He takes the boys out of the hatch , the men's sauna , or wherever he catches them. He even gets the gas station attendant after weeks of flirting and has a hard time with him. And he runs away from the hospital in a taxi to have fun for half an hour on a flap.

His friend Bernd is desperate. He tries everything to get Frank's loyalty. He cooks for him, washes for him, doesn't have sex with him, but doesn't get what he longs for.

At the Berlin Tuntenball , attended by Bernd as a sailor and Frank in tulle , the two then escalate. They seem to want to go their separate ways in the future: Bernd as a shepherd in the country and Frank as the city cobra in the feverish city. He comes straight from the tune ball to his school in women's clothes, as an Arab dancer.

background

Frank Ripploh was a secondary school teacher and a probationary officer during the shooting. He never makes a secret of his homosexuality and, as Peggy von Schnottgenberg, is even very aggressive. Even in the star he comes out and trouble with the school authorities is certain. He is only unable to serve because of an established liver damage.

About the motivation for making this film, he later said in an interview: »However, I did not pursue any political goals, but pursued purely private interests: my career as a teacher was wasted. And the film fulfilled very simple thirst for revenge, according to the motto ›I'll pay you home‹. "

Ripploh claims that it's not a gay movie at all:

"It's a sad film that expresses the longing for a relationship and its impossibility, despite all the joke."
“I definitely wanted to confront two dead-ends: a bourgeois cul-de-sac where someone suffocates in pillows, coffee and cake, and a dead-end of pseudo-free gay sexuality, where you blur borders with the help of drugs, but don't remove them. "

In the film he can be said:

"Hopefully I'll get a fat pension one day, so that I can then afford a fat prostitute."

Explicit representation of homosexual sexuality

The ironic flick, which some of the audience also perceived as a comedy, is particularly noteworthy because of its unmatched openness in the portrayal of gay sexuality, even then and still today . For example, numerous erect penises could even be seen during sexual acts at so-called glory holes in public toilets used as so-called flaps . Incidentally, it is the only non-pornographic film approved for an audience of 16 and over in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland with a scene in which not only fellatio can be seen, but also ejaculation in the partner's mouth with subsequent swallowing of semen in a long-lasting, detailed close-up. In this scene (00:42), director and leading actor Ripploh can be seen having his own orgasm. Elsewhere (01:15:34) you can see the main actor practicing a golden shower , similarly only seen in the themed film Wilde Nights (Les nuits Fauves) (1992) by Cyril Collard , who is 12 years old in France in Germany is only released from the age of 18, in which the main actor and director also plays himself.

In Austria, the film was confiscated on May 17, 1981 as part of the preparations for Vienna's first gay film festival (1982) because of same-sex pornography.

Age ratings in other countries

Cult status

The film, made with only 100,000 DM and without any funding, has become a cult film in the scene. It was the "hit" at the Hof Film Festival in 1980 and received the coveted Max Ophüls Prize at the Saarbrücken Festival in 1981 . In Freiburg, the Apollo cinema was sold out for weeks and in New York over 200,000 people saw this film as a taxi to the toilet , which grossed over 1 million dollars.

successor

With Taxi to Cairo , Ripploh made a successor in 1987 that was less successful with critics and audiences.

Director's Cut

Before his death, Ripploh was able to finish a director's cut , which was released on DVD in 2002. This is remastered , 16: 9 anamorphic widescreen and still mono . As an encore, there is a 23-minute interview with the director about Taxi to Cairo in addition to all the standards .

Reviews

  • Lexicon of international film (CD-ROM edition, Systhema, Munich 1997): “An autobiographical comedy produced with limited resources, fresh and relaxed, but also extremely drastic, which neither glorifies the homosexual milieu into an idyll nor adapts to bourgeois tastes wants to adapt, but too complacent comes close to pornographic clarity. "
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung , Munich: “A comedy full of self-irony and quick wit. There has never been anything like it. "
  • gay.ch: “It is sometimes a bit difficult to follow the story and understand the context, but in the end you know what the film was actually aiming at and what the story's punch line is supposed to achieve. If you like old gay movies, this DVD is sure to serve you well. "

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Claus: A lively pat on the buttocks . In: The morning . May 8, 1991.
  2. ↑ Andreas Brunner , Hannes Sulzenbacher (ed.): Schwules Wien - travel guide through the Danube metropolis. Promedia, 1998, ISBN 3-85371-131-6 , p. 156.