No, "The Raspberry Reich" is not the long awaited for sequel to "The Strawberry Statement." Rather, it is about Gudrun(Susanne Sachsse) who feels that having sex on a bed is bourgeois, so she persuades her partner Holger(Daniel Batscher) to use every surface imaginable in their apartment for their coupling, before
taking it outside to the elevators, inspiring a couple of neighbors(Ulrike Schirm & Stephan Dilschneider) to have a go at it. Che(Daniel Fettig) is satisfied with simply masturbating which Gudrun claims is counterrevolutionary.(Say it ain't so!) Meanwhile, Andreas(Dean Stathis), Helmut(Gerrit) and Clyde(Anton Z. Risan) kidnap Patrick(Andreas Rupprecht), the son of an industrialist, for the people's cause which also allows Clyde and Patrick to get familiar with each other in the trunk of the car.
While not the Marxist bisexual porn movie that the public has been clamoring for, "The Raspberry Reich" is still breezy hardcore fun that manages to have something meaningful to say about the state of the world between all of the sex. However, like pornography, the movie is interested in fantasy, in this case Gudrun's(who reminds me a little of somebody I used to know), both sexual and political, allowing her to play an extended game of cops and anarchists and forming conspiracy theories about the demise of the Baader-Meinhof gang who still resonate decades after their deaths in Germany.(As far to the left as I am politically, I don't take much stock in conspiracy theories.) At the same time, somewhat hypocritcally, she lives out her sexual fantasies in trying to liberate others but you cannot tell others to explore something they might be uncomfortable with.
November 17, 2010
Top Critic
