Süddeutsche Zeitung, Feuilleton, 23.02.2006 Review by Hans Schifferle

 

“24/7 The Passion of Life”, an S&M-Film from Roland Reber

 

It has become a rare species, filmmaker who produce their films totally independent from TV and film funding. The makers of “24/7” belong to it. The director is Roland Reber, an experienced theatre maker, his films like “The Room” have been shown successfully at foreign festivals. Reber shared the script and camera work with the dainty Mira Gittner, who plays the dominatrix Maria impressively in “24/7”. The trio is completed by the glamorous Marina Anna Eich, who once started her career at the Oberammergauer Passionsspiele. She now plays Eve, who is introduced into the wonderland of dark sexuality. In addition she is responsible for the co-production and the publicity. This publicity, like during the International Filmfestival in Hof, remind of Corman or William Castle.

 

“24/7 the Passion of Life” is a handmade film, which investigates a spectacular subject like sadomasochism in a mixture of trash and high art and exploits it in a positive sense.

 

The blond girl is called Eve, as the daughter of an influential hotelier she is some kind of a Bavarian Paris Hilton. Coincidentally she meets the Dominatrix Maria, on who’s card is written: “I’m the sin that you’ll never have the courage to indulge in.” Eve feels attracted by this other world of sexuality, by Maria’s Studio, this cool workshop of mysterious desires, the real opposite to the wellness-rooms at the hotel. She is especially fascinated by the melancholic intelligence of Maria, who also works as a myth researcher and understands her detailed sessions with the clients also as a therapy. Before Eve is introduced into the high theatrical art of S&M she tries out the rather touching swingers scene.

 

Fundamentally “24/7”, with its rituals of longing, is a complex study of Loneliness. “Lonely in my dreams, lonely in love with you” are the words of the soundtrack. This is the trip to salvation, the spiritual side of “24/7”: to find, at least for moments, a Love beyond all love prisons. Roland Reber’s film is an S&M opera with absurd comic moments and melodramatic sequences, a wild mélange of poetry and obscenities, in which the enema with red wine stands beside the quoting of Hesse and the dominatrix’ Studio is turned into something in between hobby room and cathedral. In the showdown, located somewhere between Jess Franco and Peter Greenaway, the lighting and cadration get clear: they are like a “vaginal” window for a new, a newly born perspective.

 

(source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Feuilleton, 23.02.2006)

 

 

 

Abendzeitung Kultur , 16.02.2006, review by Adrian Prechtel

(Film thermometer: 20 points out of 30)

 

“24/7 THE PASSION OF LIFE” wants to take the S&M and swingers scene out of the dirty corner

 

“Shame is only fear of yourself”, says the dominatrix Maria (Mira Gittner) to the young Eve, who goes on a sexual trip of salvation, into the depth of the S&M scene and swingers clubs. But with his stories about these well frequented taboo places, “24/7 The Passion of Life” liberates the milieu from dirt, mess and  the prejudice of dark violence. The film rather tries to abolish the border between bourgeoisie and so-called perversion: both are only two sides of the same coin – and the sexually excessive one is perhaps the less neurotic, healthier one.

“Passion of Life” from Roland Reber is a fictional movie. But it was shot at original sites, partly with members of the scene.

But with its strong stylization, the film is far away from being a documentary. Accompanied by music from Mozart’s Requiem and catholic church songs, as well as pieta and religious associations, there are poetic, mysterious pictures that are solemn. Also bizarre scenes, fit in there, like the ones of a theology student who can only reconcile with God and his own sexual urges through a blasphemous Christ-Crucifixion Performance. Besides these highly esthetical stylized scenes, the background story is set sharply realistic: Eve, heiress of a Hotel, in her father-daughter conflict, the shock when her visits to the scene get known, and the swingers club, with its petty bourgeois dreadfulness, the rustic interior, country music and the moustache-thanks-dear types. The film has weaknesses here, because dialogues and performance often appear artificial and clumsy. Also the liberal educational message is pronounced pithily: the dominatrix – in the film also sociology student – speaks exaggerated phrases ex cathedra.

But after all “24/7 The Passion of Life” has a great amount of sincerity. And never mind if one shares the philosophy of liberation: it is an exceptional film, and an independent film interesting in its aesthetic and contents. And perhaps in each Dr. Jekyll of us, there is a hidden sexual Mr. Hyde.

(source: Abendzeitung - 16. 2.2006)

 

Director Roland Reber managed to deal with a taboo subject in a lyrical and poetic way. Mainly the vivid pictures, combined with the exceptional music make “24/7 THE PASSION OF LIFE” an intellectual work of art. Because the activities in the Dominatrix Studio are set into a religious context, the Christian church is not expected to give its blessing. But that is not the point of the director. With his work he calls for more tolerance and wants to do away with the false double morals in our society. “Everyone of us for sure has a person in between his circle of acquaintances who belongs to the S&M scene, but doesn’t know it”. The shootings took place in a real S&M Studio. Besides the actors, also a few amateur actors from the S&M and swingers scene participated, which makes the whole even more authentic.

Anja Boromandi/Ricore Text

(source:http://www.lycos.de/entertainment/kino/filmreporter/film_story.html,,id=15772/24-7-passion-of-life.html)

"24/7 The Passion Of Life" is a powerful affirmation of life that explores with uncompromising reality the mendacity and self-deception of our lives and the cultures and religions that would have all of us behave robot-like in the expression and fulfilment of our most private sexual desires.
Watch this important work with your heart and mind wide open and you will see your innermost longings and sensual thoughts reflected brilliantly by Marina Anna Eich, Mira Gittner, Christoph Baumann, Michael Burkhardt, Reinhard Wendt and the others of this splendid cast. …That is movie making at its finest.
(Gordon Weaver, film publicist  - worked among others as a manager for Paramount in Marketing und Public Relations)

 

 

The film tries to give an honest insight into the dark sides of the German soul, without brushing it aside ironically. The bodies turn into a hoard for painful memories. I especially like the role of Elfriede with her memories of captivity, because of the discernible relation between the helplessly endured war trauma, which still floating about, and the ongoing penitence as house slave of an S&M Studio.

 

(Dr. Andreas Rost, department of culture, city of Munich)

Excerpt from Blickpunkt: Film 43/05:

Blickpunkt: Film: „One hears, that Roland Reber’s 24/7 THE PASSION OF LIFE

is a porn, a skandal film”.

Heinz Badewitz: „Who says this! It is no porn or bed wriggling, but some sort of a

Russ Meyer film, very direct and radical and very different from Michael Winterbottoms Nine Songs for example.“

(Margret Köhler interviewing Heinz Badewitz, source: Blickpunkt Film 43/05)