Background

Detlev Buck is a natural for an Erotic Tale. His “teaser” exercise at the Berlin Film Academy, One Reel In a Shower (1988), toyed with the fantasies of a shy young man in a public shower, whose reveries are suddenly interrupted by the unexpected visit of a plumb young lady. His comedy at the 1993 Berlinale, No More Mr. Nice Guy, described by a critic as “Vladimir and Estragon in a roadmovie,” had the audience in stitches and made a screen star out of natural-born-comedian Joachim Król.

So when Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion approached Buck about making an Erotic Tale, the mischievous glint in the corner of his eye got the better of him. Detlev was just wrapping a new feature film when he sat down with Regina in an Italian restaurant to bat around a couple ideas that had been pestering his sleep. “There’s this dwarf…in a circus…with a countess…”

Synopsis

A travelling circus winds its way on a wintery day through the Brandenburg countryside. Ramon, the dwarf-trainer who looks after the elephant Edgar, watches apprehensively as a car overtakes the troupe - and then crashes on the slippery surface. Ramon, with the help of Edgar, rescues Countess Lilly von Teltow just in time from the burning car - for which he is invited to the family castle to collect a reward. But when Ramon brings get-well flowers to the countess, he is disturbed to find her lecherous husband chasing Irene, Lilly’s beautiful nurse, around the house - so for his reward he asks for a night with the countess …