Bruce LaBruce isn’t known for compromising his art. In a world where underground film makers become tomorrow’s mainstream entertainers, LaBruce is still one of the few mavericks making movies on his terms, explicitly and sometimes even to the bewilderment of his own actors and audience.

The fact that his wares are unlikely ever to play in a multiplex is testament to the auteur’s rasion detre, which has embodied right from the beginning of his career in the 80s characters on the edge, outsiders and lashings of sex - often real, using both legit actors and porn stars.

LaBruce first caught the limelight with his queer-punk-erotica film No Skin Off My Ass (1991) turning skinhead homophobia on its head along with smorgasbord of art/porn flicks that would even make Kenneth Anger blush. 

Toronto’s original underground film making wild child, LaBruce is also a writer and photographer and is a kooky fusion of Jarman, Cronenberg, Warhol and art-porno maestro, whose work is clearly on the hate list of middle America and right wing Christians. If Marilyn Manson had a gay dad, Bruce would be it.

The Raspberry Reich is a surprising digression from his usual fare. Sure it’s full of his usual hallmarks such as cute porno-flick boys, dubious acting and erratic storytelling with more ham than a Greenwich Village butcher, but it’s also extremely funny and self consciously absurd, sending up its ‘terrorist chic’ subject to the hilt. If anything, there’s a touch of early John Waters here only with more graphic sex, the kind that Waters probably wished he could have got away with in the 70s.

The film’s title reflects a term by Wilhelm Reich, a Jewish sexual-analyst and Communist, to describe bourgeois appropriation of revolutionary affectations. Basically that’s rich kids alleviating their guilt by rebelling against home comforts. Spoofing the likes of the 70s Baader-Meinhof Group  and other left wing militant revolutionaries, LaBruce substitutes a group of vegetarians led by a sex mad, revolution spouting leader Gudrun, who models herself (blonde wig and all) on the real life terrorist Gudrun Ensslin. Her disciples, a bunch of boys who would look more comfortable marshalling Gay Pride than donning militant garb, also include Gudrun’s boyfriend, who eventually gets it on with fellow terrorist comrade (real life gay porn star Dean Monroe) for the sake of the gay revolution.

The main plot revolves around Gudrun’s masterplan to kidnap a rich industrialist’s son in the tradition of early militant activities in the 70s and 80s. Only here the inept terrorists, dressed in matching Avengers style jumpsuits, shove the hapless man in the car’s boot handcuffed to a comrade, who turns out to be his secret lover!

But the fun really cranks up a notch when Gudrun decides that the best way to subvert the conventions of society is to force her disciples to free themselves from the tyranny of heterosexuality and bonk with their fellow male comrades – to prove their commitment to the revolution. It’s at moments such as when Gudrun’s docile but cute lover reminds her that he’s her boyfriend that you know you’re on piss taking territory when she screams “the Revolution is my boyfriend!”

Peppered with real sex scenes that have been censored hilariously with images of Tony Blair and George Bush for an 18 Certificate release, all the characters in the film are named after original members of the Meinhof Group. LaBruce irreverently sends up the earnest motivations of a generation associated with flower-power, free-love, happenings and revolutionary affectations by parodying slogans used by political activists of the time.

Flashing propagandistic slogans across the screen and intercutting raunchy sex scenes into the proceedings of what feels at times like an amateur, porno version of Patty Hearst meets Spooks - the tone, for all its punk-ethic abrasiveness, is in the main a breezy, camp affair.

However, there are some disturbing images, occasionally reflecting uncomfortable truths, such as gun worship culture, where we see a half naked Dean Monroe embracing and sucking on an array of deadly guns as if they were a man’s erect member. But for all its controversy this is a strangely palatable affair enlivened by a sense of Tomfoolery and which is curiously informative at the same time.

“Join the homosexual intifada – heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses”, declares Gudrun, which you have to admit is a refreshing take on the usual homophobic rantings of today’s real life fanatics.

Now here’s an interesting fact. Do you remember the previous cover for the DVD release of Raspberry Reich? Well, the filmmakers apparently got into a spot of trouble with it as the family of Che Guevara, who so proudly adorned the cover, threatened to sue if the DVD was not immediately removed from store shelves. So Bad Cat Pictures did just that and re-released the film with two covers – a Warhol-esque image will be going to all the high street stores, while the balaclava-blowjob version will be available online.

Now, if you're lucky enough to own one of these now deleted DVDs then lucky you, it is a rare collectors item now as there are only 1000 in circulation!

Read our reviews of Bruce LaBruce's earlier films No Skin Off My Ass and Hustler White, as well as the previous DVD release of Raspberry Reich. Also check out our 2001 interview with Bruce LaBruce and our chat with gay porn star Dean Monroe.

Raspberry Reich [2004]
Studio: Bad Cat
Released: 5 May 2008
ASIN: B0014JGFH8

Buy The Raspberry Reich online now and save some money to put towards Bruce LaBruce's earlier films, No Skin Off My Ass and Hustler White. Alternatively, take a look at the Raspberry Reich clip below.