gender shifts
by Douglas Messerli
Dr. Abraham, Lotha Golte, Professor Peham,
Hofrat Teilhaber, and Professor Vornoff (screenplay), Károly Kurzmayer and
Lothar Golte (directors) Mysterium des Geschlechts (The Mystery of
Gender) 1933 [Difficult to obtain]
This Austrian film of 1933 is almost
impossible to find, although it seems to be still available in the Austrian
filmarchiv, which, in a recent showing of it describes it as:
“The former ‘major film of sexual research’ –
a remarkable contemporary document, even if it is difficult to endure today.
The story about two medical students who are newly in love is loosely arranged
around footage of various procedures on the human reproductive system. In
between: a dark bar populated by drug addicts and ‘sexually abnormal people,’
medical recordings of the gender of intersex people, gender changes and
transplants of animal genitalia. The medical perspective and the inserted
explanations about improperly carried out abortions, contraception, and infant
care put a thin educational veneer over a dramaturgy in which the appeal of the
taboo seems to be the decisive factor.”
A
commentator on Letterboxd, with the moniker of “Ignaz” describes it as a film in which:
“Two Viennese medical students set off on an
educational adventure to discover the "abnormal" and figure out the
mysteries behind gender. Then they go on a joyful rollercoaster ride.
…..An
ape’s scrotum is cut open and a slice of its testicles is transplanted to an
elderly man who is suffering from impotence.
A
mouse is injected with urine, killed and dissected to determine a woman’s
pregnancy.
A
piglet is killed, cut open and part of its brain, kidneys, spleen and so on are
transplanted into a human recipient’s leg to serve as some wonder cure, with
male impotence being among the targeted ailments.”
The
stars of this strange “love story” are Elisabeth Gärtner (Renée Lansky) and
Felix Werkmann (Otto Hartmann) and Lu, the Morphorsist (Morphinistin) (Traute
Braun).
Los Angeles, February 24, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(February 2024).
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