“Mother, what are you doing here? You always were a bit eccentric, but I didn’t realise that you were so perverse.”
A son meets his mother in a men’s public toilet. Nurses on the graveyard shift throw the dice to see which AIDS patient will die next. A virologist uses dildos to demonstrate the effects of AIDS. This all happens in “A Virus Has No Morals” a Rosa von Praunheim satire about AIDS. A satire about AIDS?! Yes, you read that correctly. There are probably only a handful of directors who could pull this off successfully (John Waters leaps to mind). Rosa von Praunheim is a renegade German director who’s made a number of documentaries about AIDS, and his gay activism brought him death threats in his native Germany (Rosa von Praunheim, in case you didn’t know is a man). Only someone with von Praunheim’s reputation as a fierce, unrelenting defender of gay rights could make this film and get away with it.
As its title suggests, “A Virus Has No Morals” argues that AIDS is does not discriminate when it comes to infection, and when the film begins, there are several moral authorities who believe this. The film’s moral authorities include: virologist Dr. Blood, a therapist (Regina Rudnick) who believes that AIDS is psychosomatic, and a reporter (Eva Kurz) for the sleazy tabloid, “the Purple Pages.” Of course, their smug attitudes grant them a certain comfort. After all, if they’re fine, upstanding moral people, then they can’t have anything to worry about….
In the face of infection there are many who still think they are invulnerable—including a sauna owner (played by Rosa von Praunheim). He sees AIDS as detrimental to his business, and tries to dream up social events to encourage business.
By showing the entire spectrum of those involved one way or another with AIDS, Praunheim illustrates the social dynamic of the disease. There are those who make money off of AIDS by sensationalizing it (the Purple Pages reporter), and those who promise cures (the therapist). Outraged by the “fascist medical regime,” a caring nurse forms a revolutionary group called AIDS (Angry, Sick, and Impotent Direct Action). Meanwhile, as paranoia runs unchecked in the country, the Minster of Health draws up plans to start shipping AIDS patients to “ideal isolation” on an island for Quarantine. Here AIDS patients will exist in a “post modern viral infection park,” with its own condom factory.
“A Virus Has No Morals” isn’t von Praunheim’s best film (my favourites are: “Neurosia,” “Anita: Dances of Vice”), but it is typical von Praunheim fare—very colourful, outrageous, and a riot. Somehow when I watch his films, I have the sensation that the situation is barely under control, but at the same time, it’s obvious that von Praunheim is having a great time making his films. Take for example the sequences of von Praunheim’s version of Masque of the Red Death, scenes that are interjected into the middle of the film. It’s all von Praunheim madness and mayhem, but if you are a fan you won’t mind a bit.
