Friday 26 July 2013

Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo (4 Stars)


In 1978 Christiane Felscherinow wrote an autobiography about her life as a teenage heroin addict, "Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" ("The Children of the Zoo Train Station"), which was translated into English as "Christiane F: Autobiography of a Girl of the Streets and Heroin Addict". (Note: Bahnhof Zoo was the main railway station in West Berlin before reunification). In 1981 the book was filmed as "Christiane F". That was the official film version, made with assistance from Christiane Felscherinow. But three years earlier, immediately after the book's release, an unofficial version was made, directed by Walter Boos.

The name of this film is best translated as "The Schoolgirls who meet at the Zoo Train Station". As you might guess, a film with this name and this director has more in common with the Schoolgirl Report films than the book it was supposedly based on. There is a small amount of drug usage in the film, but the emphasis is on showing nude schoolgirls. Certain scenes, such as two girls blackmailing a teacher to give them better grades, are obviously outtakes from the Schoolgirl Report films. The film shouldn't be taken too seriously.

The film is noteworthy as being the first film made by actress Katja Bienert, who was 11 at the time the film was made. Despite her young age she had a very voluptuous body. Her second film was "Schoolgirl Report 13". Over the following few years she made a series of films for the Spanish director Jess Franco, as well as posing nude for German magazines. In the late 1970's and early 1980's she was the quintessential German Lolita. German magazines such as Quick wrote about her with sensational headlines such as "12-year-old sex star", but in a recent interview she laughed about her nude scenes and called them "harmless".

Katja Bienert in school

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