Excitement all around: Berlin filmakers take care of the banal blue film, and audition people from far afield. The production will even be shown in decent cinemas, joining the ranks of the early 70's classics of Wakefield Poole, Bijou, Boys in the Sand and Moving, which were reshown a few years ago in Berlin's Notausgang cinema.

You may now be thinking in terms of a longer storyline rather than an orgy; after all, a split-second Poison-like glance would make for more stirrings in the trousers than the usual drip-feed of the jerky movements of impersonal sex machines. Wrong! Indeed, there is no plot worth mentioning, your average porno has more to offer. But in this case, this is the film's greatest strength, since the "plot" is techno, ie, lebensgefühl, a feeling for life. Half-naked guys, including some well-known in the scene, dance to techno rhythms by way of interludes, as a means to relax or stir up the atmosphere, then as a way to chill out. A lengthy plot would only get in the way here. The pace is not the only aspect of this film to bear witness to its professional origins. The atmosphere, so often neglected in pornos, is dense, the lighting, despite the obviously dark scenery, optimal. Perfect editing creates the illusion, by no means to be taken for granted in pornos, of one locality (it was filmed in two basement clubs and a condemned building). Even the ultimate test, a solo, is passed with flying colours – even Kristen Bjorn could not keep up. What, at this point, makes for favourable lines, will first have to prove its suitability for the masses: the portrayal of a variety of sexual practices, certainly not for connoisseurs of the more gentle kind: whipping, piercing, pissing; dildos, fist-fucking, chains. Something there for all fans of sado-masochism. Some people will no doubt miss the good old in-and-out number.

The rest of the story is interesting in the light of its creator's belonging to the film trade. It deals with the ever so sweet hell of sexual extremes which has to be forced on to blond boys, only just emerging from adolescence, before they can enjoy it. 17 years ago films like Cruising were boycotted due to their more "harmless" attitudes. In 1996, post-Madonna, S/M values are more widely acceptable, and politically correct stereotypes break down in porno films in any case. Berlin Techno Dreams can also offer humour. Alongside amusing special effects, such as when the guys miraculously lose their clothes as they fall, we finally discover what even the Director's Cut of Pulp Fiction kept from us: what really happened to Bruce Willis in the cellar. Whether deliberate or not, some associations will always be there.

All in all, the pleasures of the Berlin underworld is a praiseworthy and successful project. For the next production more specialisation for a more specialist audience might, under the circumstances, have more commercial success than a little for everybody. Who, enjoying some hands-on pleasure, has time to look for the rewind button every three minutes?

Deutsche Version