Shocking, often hilarious, and always controversial, Rosa von Praunheim delivers a radical treatise on heterosexuality in Red Love by intertwining statements of an outspoken, middle aged advocate of free love, with a melodramatic reenactment of a feminist novel by Alexandra Kollontai, Lenin's first Minister of Culture. Frau Helga Goetze, who at the age of 46 left her seven children and husband of 30 years, describes in detail the progress of her sexual liberation. Now 55 years old, she conservatively estimates the number of her lovers over the last few years at 200. Apparently a minor celebrity in West Germany, Goetze reveals a cheerful pride in describing and displaying her body, and a serious, dignified aspect as she makes revolutionary statements against the middle-class patriarchy. “I destroyed seven kids for society,” says the former housewife. Contrasted to von Praunheim's rough-hewn camerawork in the Goetze interview is his rendition of Kollontai's Red Love, a full-color, garish melodrama photographed by American avant-garde filmmaker Mike Kuchar. Two Party workers become lovers during Lenin's “new economic phase,” which allows a partial reversion to capitalist economics. The man takes advantage of the new phase to become a careerist; amid the ultra-modern interiors of his apartment, his lover is pressured to abandon her work and become one of his possessions, until she revolts against his multi-faceted corruption. While the film is designed as an homage to two outspoken feminists, von Praunheim has turned the tables a bit in allowing the “crackpot” Goetze to reveal surprising grace and integrity, and filming Alexandra Kollontai's earnest novel as an outrageous soap opera. “The real Kollontai probably turned over in her grave a few times,” writes Village Voice reviewer Jan Hoffman. “Nevertheless, she'd probably concur, if not with von Praunheim's means, with some of his ends: that conventional bourgeois relationships are fraught with repressed rage, sexuality and crippling lies.” Red Love was featured at the 1983 New York Film Festival.