Germany has always had a reputation for being one of the countries that has most opted for eroticism and sensuality in its films. Thanks to the sexual liberation of the 1960s, in the German country we have been able to create all kinds of films with nudity and quite explicit situations. Some of them were directly cataloged as pornographic, but in other cases, the dramatic or comedy component prevailed, despite the risque scenes. All you have to do is take a look at all those productions that used to appear with the last name of Report, in the 70s and 80s. We are talking about sagas that have dozens of films in which, within the format of false documentary, they dealt with stories about sex. In Schumalchen Report, for example, the topics revolved around adolescents and young people, how they discovered sexual pleasure, and what they did when their parents were not around.
The tradition continued for several decades with productions in which the directors were not shy about showing very explicit scenes. From Run, Lola, Run to Hotel Desire, more recently and also with very intense scenes in terms of sex. Germany has always boasted of having a fairly open vision on this subject, along with other French or Italian productions, although without reaching that cult point of Pasolini or Tinto Brass strong>. The Germanic country was also a place of refuge for directors such as Jess Franco, an exiled Spaniard, who made soft and directly porn films in the country. It seems that, nowadays, this has been almost completely lost, but there are still small productions that survive. And today we are going to focus on one of the most interesting, not only because of the curiosity and controversy it caused at the time, but also because it was considered a cult film in certain sectors. We are talking about Schnick Shnack Schnuck, a title that refers to the popular Rock Paper Scissors game, and that appeared in 2015 as an independent film. An act of courage and love for cinema and eroticism from a team that paid for the film out of pocket.
A German production
Schnick Schnack Schnuck is a one hundred percent German production directed by Maika Brocchaus and Sören Störung. It is curious that both only have this film as credits, a project that speaks more of their intention to tell only this story than to make a career in the cinema. However, thanks to the freshness and the originality with which they shoot, the film is very easy for any viewer who keeps an open mind and is not afraid of the >naked.
Because from the first moment, the directors considered that this fiction had to be very realistic when it comes to sex. The most curious thing is that all the expense related to the film was paid by the team, which later recovered it thanks to a crowdfunding campaign on the Internet. The budget is tiny, but the result, for an indie film, is not bad at all.
What does this film tell us
The film starts with Felix, a young computer engineer who arrives in Amsterdam to spend a crazy weekend with his best friend Kai, attending a music festival. Unfortunately, Felix has had to leave his girlfriend, Emmi, at home grading exams for her job as a teacher. Kai and Felix soon meet a couple of girls, Steffi and Anke, who live together in a small apartment in the city, where they are invited to spend the night. The sexual tension is unpredictable and Felix knows that fidelity is not his forte, so he ends up succumbing to the desire Anke provokes in him. For his part, Kai also does the same with the beautiful Steffi, who does not have many qualms when it comes to undressing and appearing so natural.
For her part, Emmi also knows how to have a good time. Alone at home, she decides to call her friend Magda, whom she has kept since high school. Magda is a very liberal girl who is in an open relationship with her boyfriend Olaf. Emmi is a little scared of all this, but at the same time it also excites her, since the sex life with Felix seems rather nondescript. When Magda and Olaf show up at the house and introduce her to their environment, Emmi will discover that she still had a lot to take out. And everything becomes much more interesting when both stories intersect at a swinger party where anything can happen. An intense, morbid but also very real and comic portrait of how young people nowadays face relationships, love and sex.
Very explicit scenes
For many, Schnick Schnack Schnuck is undoubtedly a pornographic movie, due to the explicit sex scenes it shows. For others, it’s just a comedy with those scenes in the middle. And it is true that a lot of emphasis is placed on eroticism, and on sex scenes, but they are not the core of the story. There is a plot, there are performances and there are scenes where there is not even nudity. For this reason, the film moves in that limbo between what is porn and what is not. Even so, the production company that brought it forward defined itself as “for erotic and pornographic cinema”. The film, if it had reached theaters, would have been classified as X, because there are many scenes where sex is shown in a very intense and real way.
But the most interesting thing about this film is that the relationships are precisely real. It’s not the porn we’re used to seeing, where one, usually the man, always has the upper hand, and the sex is aggressive and overly exaggerated. Rather, this is a film that faithfully reflects the doubts, fears, indecisions of any couple before the moment of indulging in carnal pleasure. The desire that leads us to leave behind our reason and let ourselves be carried away by vice. All this with scenes where penetrations, oral sex or masturbations are clearly seen, but in an elegant and well-shot way, which makes us feel the intimacy of the characters .
Amateur actors having sex
Another of the film’s interesting points is the choice of the cast. There are some actresses with some experience in erotic cinema, but beyond that, most are students and unknown actors. All of them, however, had no problem getting naked and even carrying out their explicit scenes on camera. They were not professional pornographic actors and that is also noticeable. There is reality in the scenes, naturalness in their interpretations, and also in the moments of sex. Thanks to that, the film became a benchmark for the German youth that came to it. A faithful representation of everything that surrounds sex when you are young and you must begin to understand that desire and love sometimes go their separate ways.