This is really a movie about what gay life was like in 1980 Berlin---but it was not so different in the US-- other than we would never have been able to film it in such graphic detail. While explicit the tone of the movie is innocent and humorous.I watched the movie when it first came out in 1981--it was shockingly explicit then and the version I watched at the Blue Mouse (arty movie theater) in Salt Lake City was cut. Even now I found myself looking away from the screen at a couple of the more explicit scenes.Life was living to go out to bars to cruise to get drunk every night--it was fun...glad I did it at that age. This movie helps relive it... It was the fun innocent days before HIV.However now at late middle age, I look at it as mostly empty nonsense--thinking it had more meaning than it did. This would be true of any youthful drama I think. Side completely with Bernd when all is said and done. Frank Ripploh types usually end up alone. The zoomy nutty promiscuous glamor of gay life is paper thin--but it was fun!RECOMMEND

I just watched the DVD of Taxi Zum Klo, some 25+ years after seeing the original in first release. I had forgotten how graphic and explicit the movie is. I almost wonder if the version I first saw (in the U.S.) was released intact. I didn't remember gay sex scenes clearly showing b/j's and penetration. Maybe I blocked them out.The overall quality of the DVD is lacking. It's definitely a transfer from video, fuzzy and jumpy. The dim, white subtitles are an exercise in frustration. This groundbreaking film deserves better. I wonder if Criterion would have the balls to tackle it?It's a good movie, clearly autobiographical. The story is a gay relationship in late 1970s Berlin. The main character, a teacher, struggles to reconcile his political conviction of sexual liberty and promiscuity with the more traditional lifestyle of his lover. The style of the film is Cassavetes-like. We get the sense that the director--who is also the lead actor-- used his friends and lovers from "true life" to act along with him. Transitions are abrupt, and not always logical. The cinematography is literal and conventional, if not downright crude, but somehow it still manages to yield a couple of shots that are beautiful. The ending feels hurried and unfinished. And it's hard to escape the suspicion that the explicit sex is used primarily for shock value.Nevertheless, this is an important film in gay cinema and one that anyone interested in the genre's development and history should see. The story line is the essential, if now stereotypical, dilemma of the modern gay male: do we emulate hetero straight values, or invent a new socio-political lifestyle for ourselves? It is a theme repeated in countless other gay films, but never as directly or as raw as it was here, just as a gay cinema was beginning.

If you rebell at even the mildest same-sex love scene, you'd do well to keep your distance from Frank Ripploh's autobiographical TAXI ZUM KLO. Not only is the film shot through with casual male nudity and film clips of vintage pornography, it also contains several extremely explicit sex scenes--including at least one that will cause even the most jaded viewer to wince.Filmed in Germany in 1981, TAXI ZUM KLO (which translates as "Taxi to the Toilet") is the saga of Frank Ripploh himself--who finds that his job as a school teacher impinges upon his sexual escapades in an annoying sort of way. Pressed for a piece of paper, he writes the telephone number of a potential sexual partner in a student's theme book; determined not to miss a moment, he grades student papers while cruising a public bathroom frequented by like-minded homosexuals. But then Frank meets Bernd (real-life partner Bernd Broaderup), and a one-night stand turns into a relationship in which Frank seems to have it all: handsome, sexy Bernd has eyes for Frank only--and he can even cook.Up to this point TAXI ZUM KLO maintains a certain eccentric humor that balances distaste with amusement; now, however, we begin to see that Frank is essentially a sex addict, a man who both desires and fears a permanent relationship. As the relationship intensifies, Frank begins to undermine it, turning to casual drug use that fuels an ever-escalating round of sexual extremes. Can Frank maintain his day-time facade as a school teacher? How much is Bernd willing to endure? TAXI ZUM KLO is often described as "an erotic comedy," and when it first made the rounds of art house cinemas and film festivals in the early 1980s it proved an audience favorite and critical darling; even so, the words "erotic" and "comedy" are more than a little dicey. Heterosexuals will have to be incredibly broadminded to find the film erotic, and after a certain point the same becomes true of homosexuals as well, for the sexual escapades become increasingly dark, increasingly disasteful as the film progresses. Much the same is true of the comic elements, which very soon become dark and, by the end of the film, less funny than disturbing and bitter. This is particularly true when one considers that Ripploh's behavior--and the behavior of others like him--fueled the AIDS crisis that exploded in the 1980s not long after this film debuted.The performances, generally consisting of actors playing themselves, are unstudied yet interesting, and the visual style of the film approximates documentary. Although I do not own the hard-to-find DVD, I have seen it; it has no extras and the picture quality is mediocre at best. I do own the VHS, and while I would not describe that as pristine, I consider it distinctly superior in picture quality. In both cases, however, the subtitles are rendered in white print--and this is unfortunate, for they are often shown against light backgrounds that make them difficult to read.In closing, I find it difficult to make a recommendation on TAXI ZUM KLO. Over the years I have shown it and loaned it to various friends, and few were able to sit through it from start to finish. Heterosexual viewers who weathered the graphic nature of the film usually found the veneral disease clinic scene a turning point; homosexual viewers endured longer but generally found a urine-laced scene toward the end of the film so distasteful that they stopped the film. Those able to reach the end of the film seemed to feel that its interest was undercut by the very unsympathetic nature of the central character and a considerable "ick" factor.Ultimately, it probably best to consider TAXI ZUM KLO as a historical portrait of a certain segment of Berlin's pre-AIDS gay community. If you have an interest in that place and time, you will find it worth the effort; if not, you are likely to think the hurdles involved aren't worth the effort. Final word: enter at your own risk.GFT, Amazon Reviewer

i watched this film on film4 after the customary warnings from the announcers and the person who introduced it (mark kermode) after listening to what he said i thought lets watch it anyway, thank god, a person who makes films with good content and not afraid to add in explicit content, as an adult i was glad that i had the choice to watch such a film and not have it cut by the censors. an excellent film, worth watching. anybody wanting to learn about the secret lives many gay men have to live to have their sexuality kept secret should watch this film, it is an eye opener, we now live in the 2000's and the world has to open up to different sexuality, and not keep denigrating it, watch this film with open eyes and open your heart to the guys in the film, not all gay men act like this but secrecy is always to the fore especially for people like teachers, who a lot of people would put down if they were found out to be gay.