Liberation

By RICHARD CORLISS

TAXI ZUM KLO Directed and Written by Frank Ripploh

No presses will stop at the news that sex is an integral part of the way men and women, men and men, women and women live and love. The arts are supposed to reflect life and love. Film is supposed to be one of the arts. But for most of film history the depiction of sexual acts was forbidden; and in the past decade it has become the province of the porno film, where sex is a dirty joke shared by performer and spectator. There are, of course, reasons beyond prudery for the resistance to explicit sex in mainstream movies. Film is still seen as a form of photography, and thus a medium of reporting: what you see is what there is, naked, without the novel's veils of metaphor or the ballet's screen of abstraction. Professional actors are neither trained nor eager to display themselves so ruthlessly for millions, and porno stars are unlikely to be convincing in a serious film's nonsex scenes. Audiences may have trouble shifting gears when a character they believe in suddenly impersonates a stag-reel stud. Suspension of disbelief breaks down, viewer becomes voyeur.

Taxi zum Klo (Taxi to the John) answers most of the objections to filmed sex precisely by seeing sex as one facet, however crucial, of its protagonist's life. This lightly fictionalized autobiography is Writer-Director-Star Frank Ripploh's first feature film, and it is as ostensibly artless as a home movie. In the film, Frank is a well-liked teacher in a Berlin secondary school, a fond son, an amateur film maker and an energetic participant in the city's homosexual night life. His lover Bernd (Bernd Broaderup, who took the same role in Frank's real life) is a sweet-souled stay-at-home who cooks and keeps house and, in moments of stress, plays Susan Alexander to Frank's Citizen Kane. Bernd can't accept that Frank is voracious for sexual experience with any consenting adult male; Frank feels restricted by Bernd's desire for a placid sex life and regular mealtimes. A blowup is inevitable. Coming home from a drag ball, they have one last fight. Frank strides into his classroom dressed as an Indian princess, with earrings, headband, beads, bra and tattered sari. "Good morning, children," he says airily.

"People say the film is porno," Ripploh notes, "but that's not the movie. It's 92 minutes long, and only three minutes and 20 seconds show direct body sex." Those 200 seconds will be enough to attract some people to Taxi and repel others, all for the wrong reasons. The right reasons are these: the film is witty, charming, rigorously unsentimental and fair to all its characters. Though none of the principals are professional actors, the performances are acute and convincing. The film, made in 16-mm for about $50,000, is handsomely photographed and edited with precision. Frank Ripploh is not simply a gay exhibitionist; he is a film maker of promise and achievement, and Taxi is a big step toward liberating the screen.

--By Richard Corliss

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