Rolf Silber | Echte Kerle (Regular Guys) / 1996

accepting the label

by Douglas Messerli

 

Rolf Silber and Rudolf Bergmann (screenplay), Rolf Silber (director) Echte Kerle (Regular Guys) / 1996

 

Tossed out of his house when his fiancée, Uschi-bear, takes up with a body-builder, packs his bags, and throws him out of the house, Christoph Schwenk (Christoph M. Ohrt) goes on a drunken spree, losing most of his luggage and all his inhibitions along the way. Somehow, perhaps without even knowing it, in his search for liquor he wanders into a gay bar where he passes out, waking up in bed cute gay mechanic named Edgar (Tim Bergmann).

     The macho self-confident cop Christoph is thrown for a loop since Edgar suggests that whatever happened was not without Christoph’s willingness. He returns to his former apartment just to pick up his car, but that soon is stolen by notorious car thieves who some of the cops of been stalking. Meanwhile he and his partner Mike (Oliver Stokowski) return to their newest stakeout, over a hair dressing salon where they believe money is exchanged by a renowned Russian mafioso. They are joined by the newest cop, Helen (Carain C. Tietze), who lays to rest the rumors that she’s screwing the police captain and has relatives in City Hall. Mike attempts to be nice to her, but Christoph, confused already by his sudden “wake up” call, is further threatened by a female colleague.

     Sparks fly, but not out of bitterness rather than attraction. Mike takes her for dinner, but it’s not really a date and she’s not attracted to him. He is equally puzzled when he observes her meeting up with another woman with whom she shares a kiss (actually her sister with whom she is temporarily living).

     Confusion abounds, as Christoph has no choice but to take up Edgar’s offer and move into a room in his back-of-the garage apartment. Christoph still doesn’t know what happened in the bedroom affair, and is even more terrified by the handsome Edgar’s attempts to get him back into his own bed. And everywhere he looks in Edgar’s apartment, even inside the cupboards there are pictures of well-build handsome nude men. Yet there is something so appealing about Edgar as his attempts to accommodate not only a straight man, but a cop behind a shop that fixes up stolen cars that even Christoph is charmed, as he moves further and further away his colleagues at work. 

      He takes a drive with Edgar in a classic red sports car that he has refurbished, spotted by the comic team of police Kallenbach (Rudolf Kowalski) and Deichsel (Dieter Brandeckeer), who not only recognize that it is their own Schwenk driving but that they have previously questioned Edgar.

    Nonetheless, the longer they live together, the more Edgar is able to help Christoph shed his despicable treatment of women, particularly when on the job Helen lists for him a litany of his behavior characteristics that represent the very reason why any woman might wish to leave him, including indifference to her feelings and his lame attempts have ignoring his girlfriend for weeks by buying her yet another teddy bear, the last of which he has brought with him to Edgar’s as if it his nightly icon of love and safety.

      The two actually learn to get on together quite nicely; at one point, as Pip Ellwood-Hughes describes the event in Celluloid Closet puts it “Edgar ignore(s) Christoph’s boundaries by climbing into the bath with him. Whilst initially uncomfortable for Christoph, it proves to be a turning point in the character’s relationship allowing them to move beyond the usual barriers to a state where they understand one another better.” Actually, when Edgar joins him in his bath, Christoph is so uncomfortable that he gets up and leaves. But strangely he soon returns and rejoins him in the tub; after all they may have already had sex together. What does it matter.

      A surprise visit from Edgar’s mother, who observes that Edgar’s new roommate, whom she believes is his new lover, has cleaned up the place and brought it into “order” (“law and order, as Edgar jokes early in their relationship), thoroughly approves of his choice. The only problem is that now that his mother has taken over Christoph’s room, the cop must share Edgar’s bed again. Nothing happens, except that he finally discovers that Edgar does even remember whether or not he had sex with him that long ago drunken night. He’s angry about the forgetfulness of the even,

and we’re not sure that isn’t also someone disappointed to discover that he may still be a virgin with it comes to other men. And, finally, the two of them even try out a kiss.

      Edgar even becomes a bit jealous of Marco, Edgar’s beautiful boyfriend, but later must warn him to keep away from him since Marco is involved in stolen auto parts and is being carefully watched by fellow policemen, including Helen who has mug pictures of the beauty.

      And eventually when his fellow colleagues discover his new address, they are convinced that Christoph must be gay, labelling him and teasing him in the men’s locker room the next morning.

One argues that he isn’t gay, but another reminds them that he “sleeps with a fairy.” Another claims he “swings those hips better than Madonna.” “Guys hold on to your valuables, here she comes.”

      When told he’s not wanted in the men’s shower, Christopher forcibly enters, kissing Kallenbach on the lips, admitting “I’m really hot for tough guys like you two.” “You think I’m gay. Okay then I am. A word with three letters. G-A-Y. Got it?” But one by one he names all the despicable behaviors the others: one “Leaning on the same hooker for quickie.” One of them never pays for a meal. Deichsel uses his handcuffs after work, perhaps explaining why his wife had another black eye. “So from now on I’m the gay guy in this sideshow.”

      Yet he and Helen have been slowing falling in love on their newest stakeout, and they soon cannot contain themselves when Mike takes a break. They sneak off to another room to fuck. But during their sexual splendors Mike returns to tell them that another car thief is just outside their window. They arrive to late to catch him, but clearly Christoph has convinced her that he’s now a changed man, truly in love and sensitive to her feelings.

      Soon after, closing down this quite fabulous comic cinema, Edgar shows up in his red sports car to pick up Mike. “Yeh, that is my new boyfriend,” he tells Kallenbach and Deichsel. Mike is gay, a secret he has long kept, but now feels free to admit. He proudly gets in with Edgar as Helen and Christoph join them in the back seat. As they drive off, Kallenbach and Deichsel note how complicated the world has become and imagine retirement in Greece.

      In many respects, Rolf Silber’s film, shot still within the AIDS crisis, was way ahead of its time. When a straight man can suddenly not be embarrassed to claim a gay identity, even if it’s applied to him, we know something radical has happened.

 

Los Angeles, December 19, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).