Baden verboten

1907-a time so long ago it is almost impossible for us to imagine that sex was even a thing back then. Since said thought is obviously highly ignorant, it is good that filmmakers like Johann Schwarzer existed to reassure us that f*cking has always existed, no matter how much society seems to have changed. "Baden verboten" is a revolutionary work of erotic cinema, and one of the most notable films by porn pioneer Schwarzer, a unique, important cinematic figure that often tried to claim his films were "art", which, technically, they are, but only in the same way that erotica/porn can be considered art, which implies a loose use of the term. "Base verboten" is only like one minute long so it's worth watching as a curio of early cinema, especially since it's so pornographic and it's entire purpose is to show full frontal nudity, something very surprising at the beginning of the 20th century!

Johann Schwarzer was a director of early porn films with pretensions of an artistic nature. According to the 'Europa Film Treasures' website on which this film can be seen, he touted Saturn Films, the company he created to make films such as Baden Verboten, as a quality production company, stating in the company's catalogue, 'We wish to inform you that our films are artistic creations. The worst would be to ruin this aesthetic balance by lack of taste, for our films are high quality.'

At the end of the day, it's a skin flick made for men who wanted to see women without their clothes on and who no doubt couldn't give a jot about any artistic merit the film might contain. The young ladies are fetching, but very self-conscious, and it has to be said that not a lot of time seems to have been spent at rehearsals. Its age gives it a certain curiosity (and historical) value, but that's about it.

No Swimming (1907)

*** (out of 4)

Another short from Astralian director Johann Schwarzer, who created his own company, Saturn Films, in order to jump into the movie business by making early adult films, which contained a lot of nudity and very little plot. This film here as three women swimming naked in a pond when the owner catches them and forced them to get out, which of course means more nudity for the viewer. I guess the main attraction here is the early use of nudity, which there is plenty of since all three women are totally nude throughout the film. The movie runs just over a minute but it's rather funny to see how easy going the filming is as well as how natural the women are working. The movie is also known as Bath is Forbidden as well as it's original title Baden verboten.

Three young women are frolicking in the water when a man comes along and orders them out, so they leave, but not before he --- and the audience -- get a good view.

A surprising number of these dirty films survive in the Vienna Film archives from the first decade of the 20th century. Just as the first real money-makers on the Internet were the porn sites, so this sort of 'art' film was very popular in its own time, before movies made a push to become respectable. But this sort of stag film remained popular at smokers for decades to come with young women absent or losing their clothes in an amazing variety of situations.

This is an interesting film. Another one produced by an Austrian company, called Saturn, and directed by Johann Schwarzer.

Here we have a number of interesting elements which notice several times in these little films "europafilmtreasures" is allowing me to watch:

-women are always purely erotic but also purely unaware (apparently) of the effect they make. They are Eve before the apple. That happens here, women explore the joy of nudity, and play with each other. That's the set, a lake, trees, and women as part of nature;

-man is a designated watcher, here he invents and performs with the woman the game which is the theme: the sand bath. Curiously, as it happens often in these films, the man also ends the innocent game, and gives the women awareness of what they thought was innocent; here that is shown with them picking their clothes and moving away from the man who, being pudic, is at the same time chasing them;

This film has a particularly interesting aspect: water. Cinema was still technically primitive, but the photography work is great here, in how it uses reflections in the water, and the circular movement of that water. The single frame of the film is highly cinematic, and i think water is the key element to that.

My opinion: 4/5 interesting film

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