Die Jungfrauenmaschine (1988) from Tuna

This art film, called The Virgin Machine in English, is an early effort from German lesbian film maker Monika Treut.

Ina Blum plays a German reporter who is trying to find the physical and psychological causes of romantic love. Her mother long since moved to America to work as a stripper, so Blum decides to go to California to escape her tiresome boyfriend, reunite with her mother, and continue her research.

NUDITY REPORT

Both Dominique Gaspar and Ina Blum show everything during the lesbian sex scene.

DVD info from Amazon

The DVD quality is absolutely awful, with the noisy B & W print aged to a pea soup green, and lacking contrast. The mandatory subtitles were also spotty and not very accurate.

For the rest of the film, we see her adventures in San Francisco, which reach a peak when she has sex with a female stripper, Dominique Gaspar, only to find out that Gaspar expects to be paid.

With a good DVD transfer, this might have been a rather enjoyable film. It's certainly not to everyone's taste, but a talented film maker's treatment of lesbianism before it was acceptable in mainstream Hollywood.

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

  • IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 6.1/10. (Meaningless. Only 34 votes)

Other ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, if the genre is early lesbian art film, this is a C, and would be a C+ with a better transfer. If the subject is of interest to you, you might enjoy seeing it once.

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