Train Station Pickups

"Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo" seems like such an obvious rip-off of "Christiane F." that I was surprised to find it came out two years before that film. The book of "Christiane F." had come out the year before, though, so I can only assume they were inspired by that publishing phenom, an interview with the titular Christiane that was only supposed to take two hours for a magazine article, but stretched on for two months and was turned into a book, a movie, and a miniseries, so indelible was Christiane's story.

The film of "Christiane F." is so grim and harrowing that it makes "Requiem for a Dream" look like "Sesame Street". Weird, then, that sexploitation filmmaker Walter Boos sought to turn this into another soft porn flick, like the infamous "Schoolgirl Report" series he had also worked on. The movie weaves its tale of the young (allegedly only eleven years old when this was filmed!) Katja Bienert character, a girl with links to the sex industry and a junkie hustler boyfriend she seeks to support. You can see where this is going right away, can't you?

The movie also interweaves some stock plots from the "Report" series, ie. A schoolgirl attempting to blackmail a teacher with her sex appeal, and a slapstick sequence in which a shy boy is about to lose his virginity but accidentally drenches himself and his conquest in paint.

As far as they go, "Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo" is one of the better sexploitation flicks I have seen, not just from Germany or the '70s, but from any place or era. The troublingly young Katja Bienert, who looks in her late teens, creates a character we care about, as does the young man who tries to woo her. The ending is surprisingly emotive. Unfortunately, as is the ironic norm for sexploitation, the movie isn't really erotic. There is little anticipation of sex/nudity when characters just appear nude from scene-to-scene.