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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

"The Night Porter" review

The Night Porter (1974)
AKA Portiere di notte, Il

Directed by Liliana Cavani
Writing credits Barbara Alberti Liliana Cavani

Dirk Bogarde.... Maximilian Theo Aldorfer
Charlotte Rampling.... Lucia Atherton
Philippe Leroy.... Klaus

Max and Lucia embrace their fate. They didn't meet under the most ideal circumstances. Best not to let the Holocaust get in the way of a good S/M relationship. They are in love. No one will stand in their way. Not the police nor the former SS officers who want to "file" Lucia away with the rest of their past. Max was in some sort of self help group for former Nazi's. Having a cathartic confession wasn't going to work for him. He needed to hang on to his past and Lucia was part of it.

I guess you could look at the movie two ways. One, as sort of classy exploitation. It's not too brutal but anything with Nazi decadence gives off a sleazy vibe. Two, as a story of obsession between former lovers who won't let go. Either scenario worked for me. Both actors were quite good at conveying obsession over each other. They were happy again although they knew it wasn't going to last. Besides, there are a ton of movies about old lovers finding each other again. This one just happened to be a little extreme. I liked it.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 because they're reunited and it feels so good!!

2 comments:

  1. the sneering (homo-phobic) snob6:21 PM

    Dirk Bogarde was British and a faggot the 2 things i hate and despise more than anything else in the world, the bloody dirty pansy queer bastard. By the way, i want to bugger Charlotte Rampling (as she was in 1964 when she was 18, not as she is now obviously) even is she is British rubbish.

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  2. sneering (homo-phobic) snob. You're a lowlife piece of shit. Also your grammar and punctuation is dreadful.
    Crawl under the nearest stone you bellend.

    ReplyDelete