The Einstein of Sex is a biopic about Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the pioneers of sexology. Hirschfeld is known as a champion of women's rights and more so for the rights of homosexuals. Despite being an important historical figure, Hirschfeld's life and work have not received much mainstream attention and his name goes largely unrecognized. I myself first heard of him only when I read Mel Gordon's book Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. So when I heard of the film The Einstein of Sex, I was eager to see it.

The life of Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1936) was indeed an interesting one. After receiving his medical degree in 1892 and opening his own practice, he began to study sex and developed his own system of classification based on one's sexual urges and preferences. He was the one that coined the term "tranvestite". Homosexuality was his main focus. He led a life-long fight to repeal what was known in Germany as "Paragraph 175", the section of the penal code that made homosexuality a criminal offense. In 1897 he helped found The Scientific Humanitarian Committee which fought for the rights of people regardless of their sexual identity and preference. In 1904 he joined the feminist organization League for the Protection of Mothers and campaigned against the discrimination of women in the workplace.

After WWI ended in 1918, Germany had experienced a revolution in which the old Aristocratic leadership ended and was replaced with a democracy. A new freedom and liberalism was born. With a new sexual openness, Berlin became the erotic capital of Europe. In this atmosphere of freedom, Hirschfeld opened The Institute of Sexology. The Institute was a large complex that housed a university for sexual studies, a library of erotica, medical clinics for venereal diseases, a psychological counseling department, and a museum of sexual objects that were collected from around the world. Hirschfeld also studied many forms of sexual fetishism and many bizarre fetish objects were included in the museum. Tours of the Institute were conducted regularly. Hirschfeld became the leading figure in sexology and became known as the Einstein of sex. In 1933, however, Adolf Hitler and the nazis came to power and Germany went from an atmosphere of liberalism and freedom to dictatorship and repression. Magnus Hirschfeld was not only liberal and homosexual, but he was also Jewish which put him on the nazis list of persona non grata. His life was saved because he was not in Germany at the time of Hitler's ascent to power but that did not stop the nazis from thoroughly destroying his Institute of Sexology.

The Einstein of Sex covers Hirschfeld's life from his childhood up until 1933. It is directed by Rosa von Praunheim. It is shot on digital camera, which I actually liked. I was not familiar with von Praunheim's work and I must say that I like his style. The film has an avant garde feel to it and it suits the subject matter. I heard it being described as "kitchy" but I actually liked it very much, I found it different and interesting. It is not an easy subject to film and von Praunheim adds a lot of humor to it. I also like the actors as well.

The film does not focus too long on any one particular aspect of Hirschfeld's life, but all in all you get a good picture of the man. There is also a documentary included on the dvd that fills in a lot of what was not covered in the film itself. The problem is that parts of the documentary have sound problems. I originally thought that it was only my copy that was damaged but I found out that all of them are like that because there was damage to the master copy. In some parts of it, the sound goes very low and you have to turn it up very high to hear it. But despite these sound problems it is very much worth seeing.