DVD/150: TAXI ZUM KLO (Frank Ripploh, 1980)

The German film renaissance of the 1970s and 80s included gay directors Rosa Von Praunheim and Rainer Werner Fassbinder gaining worldwide recognition and in 1981 their friend Frank Ripploh briefly joined them when TAXI ZUM KLO became an instant cause celebre; it took 30 years for the British censore to pass it uncut.

Actor/writer/first-time director Ripploh makes sure the film revolves around him.  Echoing early John Waters films - amateurish, kitsch pop music, an over-reliance on kamikaze editing and counterpointed action - it's quite remarkable.

Ripploh plays... Frank Ripploh, a teacher whose pupils enjoy his classes. His life revolves around cruising clubs and toilets, quietly wondering if he misses out on not having a partner.

After meeting cinema usher Bernd, they move in together. Bernd wants them to leave Berlin to live in the countryside which alerts Frank that his sexual outlaw days are over.  

The relationship deteriorates...

Shelf or charity shop?  Frank can live in my plastic storage box...  despite Ripploh's clanging insistance that the film revolves around him, luckily he has charm and charisma enough to overcome this - indeed he gives the audience ample opportunities to dislike him.  Sadly the character of Bernd (played by Bernd Broaderup) is such a thinly-drawn character that it's difficult to feel anything for him - probably Ripploh's intention - so Bernd comes across as a bit of a whiny bore. This makes the second half of the film - where the relationship starts to breakdown - a bit one-sided.  Famous for the explicit gay sex scenes which caused endless censorship troubles - the British censors got themselves into a right old lather over a 'golden shower' scene - these scenes have almost an elegiac quality now.  TAXI ZUM KLO's award-winning success inflated Ripploh's ego and he dropped many old friends and, despite a small role in Fassbinder's QUERELLE, the next film he directed failed and even a later sequel to TAXI ZUM KLO tanked.  He died of cancer in 2002, aged 52.  And that title?  It translates as TAXI TO THE TOILETS, after the scene when, following an argument when Bernd visits him in hospital, Frank sneaks out and hires a taxi to take him around Berlin's public toilets.  That Frank...

DVD/150: AKIBIYORI (LATE AUTUMN) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1960)

Ozu's classic LATE SPRING's plot was reworked for LATE AUTUMN and here Ozu intermingles humour and drama equally.

At the seventh memorial of Mr Miwa's death, his three friends meet his widow Akiko and 24 year-old daughter Ayako.  The men all courted Akiko when young and still think her attractive.  They decide to meddle in their lives and find Ayako a husband.

Akiko teaches dressmaking and Ayako works in an office with her friend Yuriko and has no wish to get married and leave Akiko alone.  But the plot continues: Mr Mamiya suggests Ayako meet his employee Goto and they start a tentative friendship.

The men decide if Akika remarries then Ayako need not worry. So widower Hirayama is chosen as her suitor but Ayako discovers the plot, misunderstanding that Akiko has agreed to re-marry.

Yuriko decides to sort the mess out but Akiko makes the ultimate decision...

 

 

Shelf or charity shop?  A shelfer.  Ozu-san again provides a memorable insight into the unacknowledged changes that end a family unit. The initial air of a comedy slowly gives way to the sadness of the two women at being manipulated apart.  Setsuko Hara delivers another wonderful Ozu performance as Akiko: eleven years before she had played the daughter not wanting to leave her widowed father in LATE SPRING but now she's the parent, always smiling and sad-eyed and whose final shot remains in the mind; saying volumes without saying a word.  She is well partnered by Yoko Tsukasa as her daughter Ayako, she would go on to appear in Ozu's following film. Keiji Sada delivered another fine performance as the proposed husband Goto, while three Ozu veterens Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita are great as the meddling trio of friends.  Ozu's favourite actor Chishu Ryu appears in a two scene cameo as Akiko's brother-in-law.

 

 

DVD/150: MAGGIE SMITH AT THE BBC - THE MERCHANT OF VENICE / THE MILLIONAIRESS / A BED AMONG THE LENTILS / SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (various. tv)

An uneven quartet of BBC productions starring Maggie Smith.

Cedric Messina produced the PLAY OF THE MONTH series but also directed their 1972 version of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE; Portia's mix of humour and drama was perfect for Maggie but she struggles with a leaden studio-based production and a subdued Frank Finlay as Shylock.

She starred in another 1972 POTM, Shaw's THE MILLIONAIRESS where she is pure Smith: her fur stole wealded like a weapon, imperiously all wrists, cheekbones and shoulders but it's another underwhelming production.

Also included is her unforgettable Susan, the depressive vicar's wife whose secret drinking leads to the arms of an Asian shopkeeper in TALKING HEADS, written and directed by Alan Bennett.

Last is Richard Eyre's adaptation of Tennesee Williams' Southern Gothic SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER.  Maggie was ill during the filming but her subdued Mrs Venable exudes a patrician power rather than all-out madness.

Shelf or charity shop?  Half of the productions might be underwhelming but Maggie's performances make it onto the shelf. Interestingly, the extras make it more of a keeper: there is her episode from the 1967 series ACTING IN THE 60S where she is interviewed by Clive Goodwin and they are later joined by her longtime friend Kenneth Williams to discuss playing comedy.  A 1973 apperance on PARKINSON is a great addition when, again joined by Kenneth Williams, they read John Betjemin's "Death In Leamington" to the obvious pleasure of Betjemin.