The Einstein of Sex

This is a film that should be seen. It may shock, certainly, but it will enlighten and educate. It is also a part of German history. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish homosexual, set up an Institute in 1921 to research problems concerned with sexuality. This was an unexplored field. People from all over Europe consulted him about their own sexual problems, including the young Austrian Baron Hermann von Teschenberg who became his lover. In 1933 the Nazis destroyed the Institute of Sexual Science. Research papers and museum pieces were lost for ever. Male nudity in this film is acceptable because it is relevant to the subject. The museum is filled with phallic objects carved from ivory, penis protectors from Papua New Guinea, an intriguing masturbation contraption (which perhaps is the fore-runner of the modern vibrator), tattooed testicles belonging to the Chinese emperor's brother and other so-called "sinful objects". All this is portrayed in a clinical and straight forward manner. The good doctor is called upon to do surgery and one can get a bit squeamish when he goes to work on the transvestite Dorchen or the removal of a penis from a pleading hermaphrodite. It seemed to me it was executed with a very quick snip done under the most unhygienic conditions. Some of the other characters worthy of mention are the young Karl Giese (Hirschfeld's lover) who fights a losing battle to protect the Institute from the Nazi madness, and Adolph Brand an important gay right-wing writer who writes extravagant poetry about the physical beauty of German youth. Direrctor Rosa von Praunheim has done a magnificent job in bringing the life and work of Dr. Hirschfeld to the screen. It is a frank and honest approach and it is not without its little touches of humour. This film is worthy of attention. It's one of the most entertaining I've seen for a long time. How nice it is to see something very different. I rank it high on my list of favourites.

The film had early on one of the wittiest lines I have recently encountered: M. Hirschfield, barely into adulthood, and discussing with his uncle and aunt what his academic aspirations are, has his aunt give arguably the best line in the film. "M. do you promise to live?" (That is long enough because his father was a disappointment in that department...) "Yes aunt, I do." "You have to promise, you know, because that is a lot of money that will go to your studies." Well, it was more wittingly put in the film, than I have rephrased it. If that is not Lady Bracknell (from O. Wilde's "The importance of being Earnest") converted into Judaism, I do not know what is! Some of the fun aside, I really think this is an epitome of Jewishness: you have to promise not to die, because, you know, you are giving your promise to the law, that is studying, that is in the Name of the Father. And life, my dear, is completely insignificant in matters of the law.

Too bad the film does not pay attention to its clues. This could have made terrific comedy, but the effect is literal: young Hirschfeld looks anxious, to the wrong direction, missing all the fun, and spoiling ours for the rest of his on screen time. He seems preoccupied in all the wrong ways, along with the script I'm afraid. And when the film shifts gears with his older self, the actor chosen is visibly of a quite different sensibility, so that we miss all the insightful change from his formative to his twilight years. And this, too, courts disaster, for a film concerning an important personality must put that to the test, and be put to the test trying it. None of this happens, and the effect is that of being cheated into cheap editing.

The camera work takes some decisions that run counter to what distance we may want to take from the film, or not, literally or not so. It is one of these instances that the film-maker seems confused in thinking out the film in visual terms, so he picks up the middle way of almost constantly occupying the middle field. This blurs the characters and their initiatives.

Or, to put it in another way, don't you feel cheated, when you put to yourself the question "how much of this was devised, and how much derives from books and archives and true research?" For me at least, when you seriously (and not wonderingly) ask yourself that, the film has failed dramatically.

For the "Einstein of Sex" part, this film has little relativity, even less organizing theory, or Einstein's famous humor. As for the sex, well, the film does not introduce us into such bold matters...

Earlier reviewers loved this movie, and if you like what their reviews said about it you'll hate mine.

This movie reminded me of the short educational films they used to show us in primary school in the 1950s, in which the topic was dramatized barely well enough that children could understand it, but not well enough that any adult would want to watch it.

The one I remember most clearly said, in effect, that you'll get tuberculosis if you kiss your grandmother on the lips. I remember that one probably because my grandmother (the only person who loved me) dropped dead (of a stroke, not TB) two weeks after my eighth birthday, and the pain and loss were so great that I'd gladly have joined her.

This movie has the same simplistic, pedantic, preachy tone as those films, and even lower production values. The acting was better in the granny-may-have-TB film. Rosa von Praunheim seems to care about the message only, not about any other aspect of movie-making (like entertainment).

Halfway through the movie, the actor playing Hirschfeld abruptly changes, from hunky Kai Schumann (listed far down in the credits, and not even mentioned on Amazon and other sales or rental sites, even though he dominates the first half of the movie and it's him on the cover) to doughy Friedel von Wangenheim, with this voice-over during the scene change: "My craving for sweets had certain effects on my appearance." That may be either an attempt at humor or a plea to ignore the startling actor switch.

I suspect that Schumann (who has gone on to a fairly successful acting career) cut and ran mid-filming when something better came along. Why else doesn't he share top billing with von Wangenheim? Each played Hirschfeld for half of the movie, and Schumann makes a far stronger impression.

Anyway, if for some reason you want to know about Magnus Hirschfeld and can't be bothered to read, then you may appreciate this move. I had known about it for years before I finally got so desperate for something new to watch that I broke down and rented it. The stupid title and the extraordinarily unappealing black-and-orange cover put me off, and I can't say I'm sorry. I'd be just fine if I'd never seen it.

This film pays long overdue homage to the so-called Einstein of Sex, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. Both contemporaries also share German-Jewish Heritage, and tremendous influence on the the 20th century. Dr. Hirschfeld's work, however has just become speakable let alone filmable in the last couple of decades. Rosa von Praunheim, a former underground filmmaker, has been breaking cinematic sexual taboos these past two decades. Von Praunheim's "made in Berlin" avant-gardism gives him much common ground with Hirschfeld. So much so that major European institutions lent their financing to von Praunheim's first mainstream film. In THE EINSTEIN OF SEX, von Praunheim mixes what is really known about Dr. Hirschfeld with actual newsreel footage of the 1910-1934 period, and adds trademark von Praunheim humor to fill in the unknown details. The true to life location shots (those of Berlin, and the Vorpommern Baltic coast in particular)are used to good effect. The result is a crowd pleaser, as the film's ranking in the top ten of audience votes in the recent Sao Paulo Film Festival (see mostra.org) will confirm. That's where I just saw it, so it was no surprise to see it listed on the Festival's top ten audience vote. Many von Praunheim "purists", however, may feel the director sold out to the conventional European film funds, German state sponsorship, and cable TV companies who co-produced the project. More conservative audiences may feel offended by the contents (though quite tame by von Praunheim standards). Nevertheless, the film is legitimized by the appearance of several of Germany's best-known actors in supporting and cameo roles (including Ben and Merrit Becker of the COMEDIAN HARMONISTS), and solid technical standards.

This film plays like community theatre on over-lit digital video. Don't you hate it when a worthy topic is wasted on a bad film? Overacting, a trite script, distracting voice-over, two dimensional characters and editing out of Film 101. It was a struggle to watch through to the end.

If you still want to rent this you can watch the documentary on the DVD where you will meet the director Rosa van Praunheim who will tell you how famous, wise, and intellectually and sexually experienced he is. And he's serious.

That said it is an important true story of the first sexologist who fought for the rights of what is now called the queer community.