Dorothea's Rache

The 1970s saw a virtual explosion in uninhibited depictions of sexuality on celluloid particularly in Europe which belie their age when watched today; this saw the careers of exploitation film-makers like Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin blossom but also that of artier directors like Walerian Borowczyk getting stranded in sleaze once he had a significant commercial success in this vein! As often happens with cinematic trends, it is not long before they get sent up and this obscure German film is one such spoof. The film combines an air of theatricality (characters address the camera directly at times – right from the very opening scene), cine-verite' (students are shooting "The Lexicon of Love", a part-lecture by a masked 'professor' and part re-enactment of his bizarre teachings) and surreal fantasy sequences (the titular character – through whose eyes we follow the freewheeling, weird and often unpleasant narrative – is introduced by telling her parents that she had just been raped by an alien and produces a smoking meteorite to prove it, and later even a blond Jesus Christ pays her an unheralded visit to offer some controversial advice to sleep with "children and fools" which she proceeds to do instantly with a shoeshine boy and a retarded flasher!).

Dorothea's adventures in Sleazeland take her to try out group sex (a friend of hers is ostensibly invited for a photo session and when she calls at the hotel room to offer her support, she gets gang-banged by a mature trio of perverts whom she subsequently interviews while hiding their identities since some of them are married), prostitution (she follows a streetwalking friend as she plies her trade and gets beaten by her very first client – a middle-aged man – for causing him to ejaculate prematurely) and domination (the film's most outrageous sequence has a lesbian madam enjoying Dorothea's body; naked old men walking around in cages; and even a one-legged, bearded man stretched across a crucifix)! While the crazy song-fuelled imagery (including the intermittent display of laughing devices recorded and mass-produced by Dorothea's father) elicits the occasional laugh, the proliferation of the sordid details – especially the unabashed flailing of male genitalia – proves hard to take at times. Besides, for being a comedy and a celebration of free love, it does not flinch from showing the destructive effect this lifestyle has on the more sensitive souls who come in contact with it (namely a college professor infatuated with Dorothea who hangs himself after one rejection too many). While the presence of distinguished screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere may seem appropriate given the thematic similarities with Luis Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR (1967), one has to wonder what the Spanish film-maker made of this film in view of his avowed revulsion towards graphic sexuality on film! The German director of DOROTHEA'S REVENGE is not a name that rings many bells, but it seems that Fleischmann hit it well with Carriere since he requested the latter's writing services again for his next film – a French thriller entitled LA FAILLE aka WEAK SPOT (1975) starring Bunuel regular Michel Piccoli, Ugo Tognazzi, Mario Adorf and Adriana Asti (who had just appeared in the latest Bunuel-Carriere collaboration i.e. 1974's THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY)!

What to say about this? Well, it's kind of like Dusan Maneshevev's "Sweet Movie", but more exploitative and a little less arty. It also kind of resembles one of those late 60's Swedish movies like "I Am Curious--Yellow" where a young woman "explores her sexuality" (i.e, casually screws pretty much everybody), but whereas those movies were serious more or less, this movie has a wry, subversive sense of humor. Being German, it also of course resembles the then-popular "Schulmadchen Report" films, but it is far more bizarre than titillating.

Dorothea is a 17-year-old girl, who when we first see her, looks very disheveled, is holding a strange, smoking object, and announces to her parents that she's just been raped by aliens (but they are only concerned about whether "the pill" would be effective against such a sexual encounter). Next she participates with her friends in strange sex film they are making. Her father owns a novelty factory and she befriends one of his female employees, who has an appointment with a seedy photographer to take some "modeling pictures". She tries to defend her new friend's virtue against the photographer, but doesn't do a very good job--she instead gets gang-banged by him and two of his sweaty, overweight friends. Afterward, she pulls out a film camera and "interviews" the three men. They all sit through the interview, but insist on covering their faces with towels (but unfortunately not the rest of their grotesque naked bodies). Next she finds out that a teacher who was in love with her has committed suicide, so she responds by becoming a prostitute. That doesn't go too well, so she becomes a dominatrix instead where she runs across masochistic, derelict Christ figure. . .

I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a sexploitation movie, but it doesn't really work as such. The actress playing "Dorothea" has a nice body, but she's not exactly a raving beauty. And there is A LOT of very unappealing male nudity. I just can't imagine ANYONE in any time or place draining their dragons to sex scenes involving all these fat, pale, wrinkly-assed German guys. Also, despite the title, I'm not sure at exactly what point "Dorothea" gets revenge. But, oh well, if you just want to see something different. . .

DOROTHEAS RACHE begins with the characters talking directly to the camera and thus us, the viewers. But this is only one of the many, many pleasantly weird things you'll discover when watching this film. Right at the beginning we learn that Dorothea, who introduces herself as a 17 year old girl, has just made love to a Martian. And she even has a groovy, smoking meteorite to prove it. The parents are concerned if the pill will work in the case of interstellar sex ... The rest of the film follows Dorothea as she tries to learn more about love (both emotionally and physically) and ends up being abused again and again by an amazing parade of creeps and freaks before Jesus Christ himself pops up to give her some good advice ... Did I mention that this film is weird? The thing that cracked me up the most was Dorothea's father who runs a firm that produces "laughing bags". That's some kind of small mechanism that's in a metal box and is then put into a bag. When you shake the bag you are treated to hysterical laughter ... Awesome, just awesome! If only contemporary German cinema were as fascinating as this 1972 film ...