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Summary: Rampling, Bogarde extraordinary in dark, brooding tale
Review: "The Night Porter" is a dark, melancholy film from a period of moviemaking in which audiences were more adult overall and more willing to accept offbeat subject matter. It was also a time when the world was ready to reflect on the horrors, as well as the possible causes, of the Nazi era. Today, "The Night Porter" may be a bit of a relic, but to anyone with knowledge of the impact Hitler and friends had on the civilian population of Europe, it should still prove to be powerful stuff. It is 1957, and WWII has been over for a dozen years. People like Maximillian [Dirk Borgarde], who was a proud Nazi officer in a concentration camp, have melted into the general population. Investigations continue, however, and Max and his old buddies are still in danger of being tried for war crimes. They are constantly on the lookout for people who might be witnesses against them. Their policy is to "File them away" whenever possible. Lucia [Charlotte Rampling] has also tried to lead a normal life. Married to a famous conductor, she has been traveling in Europe with him. In a fashionable Vienna hotel, her life comes to a crashing halt because that is where she once more encounters Max, the man who took her as his lover when she was a war prisoner and involved her in all sorts of unspeakable acts. When her husband moves on to the next city, Lucia stays behind. She again becomes Max's lover, and the movie moves on to its inevitable and tragic conclusion. Why she takes up again with such a sick man is up to the viewer to decide. To me, it is not as absurd as it might at first appear to be. The stunningly beautiful and remarkable Rampling gives one of her greatest performances as Lucia. She is an actress who knows how to speak volumes when she is silent. [Yes, she is one of my favorites.] The late Dirk Borgarde is very good as Max. Other fine Rampling films include "Georgy Girl", "The Damned", Wings of the Dove" and "Great Expectations". Borgarde starred in a number of classic movies in the 1960s and 1970s. Among these are "Victim", "The Servant". "Accident". "Death in Venice" and "Darling".
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Summary: Utterly depraved and utterly fascinating
Review: "The Night Porter" must have been one of those films that shocked people when it first came out. Directed by Liliana Cavani and sporting a garish cover on the Criterion Collection DVD (yes, the cover image does come from a scene in the movie, but not in the way you would think), "The Night Porter" deals with extremely unpleasant psychological situations stemming from the holocaust. The film is definitely not for everyone, but those capable of keeping an open mind may find much to like about this generally repulsive piece of art house cinema. You have to hand it to Criterion for continuing to release pristine transfers of films considered anathema to mainstream audiences. My experiences with this DVD company have introduced me to such wondrous delights as "Blood for Dracula," "Man Bites Dog," "Peeping Tom," "Hearts and Minds," and several other challenging titles. My only gripe with Criterion concerns the cost of their DVDs, which often seem quite high even for such great movies. "The Night Porter" is about a night porter working in a fancy hotel in Vienna, Austria twelve years after the end of World War II. If the movie merely touched on the surface aspects involving night portering, it would be a dull affair indeed. How to make a film delving into the multifaceted fascinations of checking in luggage, or taking phone calls from irate customers? No, "The Night Porter" has little to do with the hotel industry and much to do with a hideous relationship between two tortured souls. The night porter at this particular hotel, Max Aldorfer (Dirk Bogarde), was once an SS officer assigned to a concentration camp where he tortured and killed inmates. Post war investigations into war atrocities has Max and his fellow Nazi henchmen on edge; they meet often to discuss their efforts to suppress evidence and other ways to cover their tracks. Max is ambivalent about these meetings, and becomes even more so after a chance meeting with a woman he had a very special relationship with in the camp. This woman, Lucia Atherton (Charlotte Rampling), initially expresses horror at seeing her former lover/tormentor in the flesh after all these years, but then something grim and repellent happens. The sick spark that united victim and oppressor all those years ago blossoms anew. Lucia feigns a lame excuse to her husband about staying behind so she can indulge her desires for Max. And this is only the beginning of the trouble. Max's friends express great alarm about this relationship. They see Lucia's presence as a significant danger to their yearning for anonymity, and they want Max to jettison the love affair and come over to their way of thinking. Max suspects spending time with Atherton presents a danger to him, but he cannot bear the idea of giving her up again. He secrets her away in his apartment in an effort to hide the relationship from his companions, who warn Max that keeping this woman in bondage will force them to take drastic measures to insure their secrecy. The former Nazi's go so far as to monitor Max's apartment twenty four hours a day, taking pot shots at him whenever he sticks his head outside for even a minute. When Max and Lucia run out of food and drink, they make a terrible decision about their future that will have permanent, unpleasant results for the pair. It would be easy to write off "The Night Porter" as an exploitation film, a movie in the same vein as Tinto Brass's "Salon Kitty" or "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS," two films which borrow themes from National Socialist Germany to make a cheap statement about the nightmare of the holocaust. "The Night Porter" does contain many disturbing images that could rate as exploitation fare: the flashbacks to the concentration camp where Max and Lucia first meet immediately comes to mind, as does the little dance number Lucia performs for her lover and a room full of SS officers. Having said that, I really don't feel this movie is exploitative. There is something more going on here than mere sensationalism, perhaps a statement about the nature of power and how it pertains to love during a horrific event. I would need to watch the film again to examine Lucia's desire for Max, but for the former SS officer I think the need to relive a time when he was a man with position and power is the main reason he rekindles this doomed relationship. Here's a guy who held the power of life and death over thousands of people, and now he works as a lowly hotel clerk. Why wouldn't he want to taste again the rush of power he gets when he dominates Lucia in his apartment? Sure, it is sick, but people do inexplicable things in relationships all the time that are just as disturbing. A quick note on the performances: Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde both excel in their respective roles. Rampling especially is always easy on the eyes and has a wonderfully expressive face capable of transmitting complex emotions to the audience without uttering a word. If for no other reason, you should watch this film just to see these two actors turn in amazing performances. Married with a marvelous picture transfer, sumptuous set pieces, gloomy atmosphere, and a great script, "The Night Porter" is a one of a kind film that is sure to make an impression. Thanks again, Criterion, for releasing yet another brilliant cinematic oddity.
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Summary: Cabaret Salome
Review: 'The Night Porter' isn't for everyone. It may, in the end, be for no one. One of the most controversial movies to come out of the 1970s (and there were a lot of them), 'The Night Porter' is about a man and a woman who haven't seen each other for years and who run into each other at a hotel in Vienna. She's there with her composer husband. He works the front desk. Can their shared past be denied? Was what they had together so strong that they would risk everything to get it back? It's only controversial when you consider that in their previous 'relationship' the man was her concentration camp torturer. Like I said, not for everyone. But I thought it was great. Especially the 'Cabaret Salome' set-piece. Brilliant. Sick, but brilliant. Check it out.
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Summary: distracted by the plight
Review: ...When a freed Nazi prisoner return to the arms of the Nazi Soldier who held her slave duing the war, out of love, there is no pride in her actions. When a persecuted war-criminal rejects all legal, political or nefarious means for remaining free, and binds himself to the dwindling fate of the ex-prisoner he now loves, there is no pride in his actions. When the two of them baracade themselves in a dirty apartment under seige from his former Nazi compatriots and refuse to seek help out of fear of seperation, there is no pride in their actions. If love is the force that can move nations and liberate the enslaved, then this movie shows us just a peak at the dark side of that same force. There are moments of surprising eroticism here amongst the intricate and unsure psychological gameplaying of the leads. One gets the feeling that they don't really understand why they are allowing themselves to do what they do, but that they accept the inevitablity of it all. The need, hunger, lust and desire for punishment and retrubution is all on clear display on the faces of the leads, this is not a simple or clean film. Ultimately some of the complexity of character and motivation is what leads this film down a blind alley unfortunately. In the last third of the film the director makes several narrative choices which water down significantly the meaning and impact of the first two thirds. rather than exploring the impact of the love between the two characters and what they must do to preserve or leave it the film settles into an us versus them structure and becomes a film about the fight to leave one's past behind. This last third wastes the performances of the two leads because this material has nothing to do with them as characters and completely negates the depth and finess of their performances in giving these two humanity because it depends upon them only as archtypes meant to go through a set of patterns. This could have been a soul shattering film, and indeed the first two thirds hints that it will be. Sadly it steadfastly refuses to live up to its potential and chooses instead the safety and calm of a predictable and nearly conventional ending.
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Summary: the night porter
Review: a great movie. must have. glad to see it on DVD finally
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Summary: Great essay on victim/persecutor perversion
Review: After first watching this film I agreed with one of the previous reviewers who stated that it was a curious addition to the Criterion Collection, not quite up to the artistic standard. But since my viewing, several weeks ago, I have been unable to go a day without contemplating it's cinematic portrayal of the more perverse aspects of the relationship between the porter and his former victim. Portraying the Holocaust is no easy matter (duh). However, Night Porter is a bold attempt to convert the seemier perversity in an operatic manner. I'm not a survivor so can't come close to fathoming that experience, and I very much doubt that the situation depicted ever occured, but it is an expressionist portrayal into the workings between victim and persecutor and the sickening manipulation, whether intentional or not, between the two. I've heard stories of young camp guards falling in love with inmates (and the tragic results: her immediate termination; his transfer to colder regions) and this is a dramatic portrayal of such a relationship with Dirk Bogarde playing someone who was most likely demented prior to his employment at the camp. And this leads to another interesting consideration: patients running the madhouse. Every society has it's sadists/sociopaths. It's devastating to consider the Nazi's collecting these individuals and giving them unchallenged authority over their victims, encouraging ever more creative manner of carrying out their wildest most brutal fantasies. No, Night Porter is neither a sharp historical document nor a cheerful film with a happy ending. It is, however, a bit of cinema that should provoke some thought. And, it is nicely filmed with a wonderfully maintained pace. Watch the use of night vs. day in the underworld activities of the "deactivated" nazis. As to the DVD itself: nice transfer picturewise, but quite hissy soundwise. No extras to speak of, which is disappointing, as given the controversy that accompanied it's release it would be nice to see some contemporary reviews or protests.
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Summary: Seriously underrated
Review: Although it has brought uprobrium on all involved, and nearly ended the film careers of Bogarde and Rampling, this is a remarkable study of post-traumatic stress syndrome. There were many such stories in Vienna, twelve years after WW II, and this one is studied with nearly flawless timing. The ex-Nazi goons are repulsive, of course, but a necessary exteriorization of the persecuting demons within. The two main characters have everything to live for, but find their choices closing down, one after another, until the final but not incredible Liebestod.
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Summary: Ironic twist in The Night Porter
Review: Besides the comments made by other reviewers on the story's ironic and seductive twists, there is an important bit of ironic iconography. Max resides in a flat within the greatest monument of Rottes Wien-- Red Vienna--the complex known as "Karl-Marx-Hof". Designed by the architect Karl Ehn and built in 1927 by the municipality of Vienna as one of its "superblocks" of housing for the working classes, the "Karl-Marx-Hof" was subjected to artillery fire in 1934 during the short civil war when Vienna's left-of-center government was literally bombarded out of office by federal troops. This set the stage for the later "Anschluss" in 1938 when Austria was incorporated into Hitler's Third Reich. So the irony is: an ex-nazi again seducing a Jewish former concentration camp victim inside a monument of Vienese socialism that was bombed by the Austria fascist forces prior to subjugating themselves to the nazis! Could any cinematic clash have more?
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Summary: Bogarde SS
Review: Decadent, vicious, seductive. More style than substance. Not for every taste.
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Summary: Not likely to pop up late night on TBS.
Review: Despite the misleading cover photo, this is not another stab at exploitive and kitschy WW2 sick humor a la "Ilsa:She-Wolf of the SS", but a far more ambitious and artful work of cinema. Disturbing and repulsive, yet quite compelling, "The Night Porter" brilliantly uses a depiction of sado-masochism and pycho-sexual politics as an effective allusion to the horror of Hitler's Germany. Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling are both broodingly decadent as a former SS officer and concentration camp survivor, respectively, who end up in a twisted, doomed relationship years after the war. You would have to search high and low to find two braver performances than Bogarde and Rampling give in this complex story (Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter in "The Piano" comes the closest). Like the film "Seven Beauties", the "sex" you think you're watching is really a subliminal lesson on the ugly politics of facism and oppression. Obviously, this is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but recommended for any cinema buff up for a challenge.
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