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Rating: I begin by saying that I am deeply sorry if anyone may be annoyed by my desire to start the discussion on this sixth film by Liliana Cavani by taking a somewhat long view, and I do not speak with rhetoric much less ironically. When in 1972 "Last Tango in Paris," the famous film by Bertolucci whose fame has been both a blessing and a curse for the director as well as for cinema enthusiasts who have seen it overlap with others of his films, made its entrance into theaters worldwide, the world was thrown into turmoil, particularly in Italy. Accused of pansexualism and providing a degrading view of the male-female relationship, the film was set aflame, except for a few copies, and a full two hours were discarded by censorship, the director lost his civil rights, Brando was forced to wear a cilice, there was talk of reinstating the Inquisition, several religious communities proclaimed the imminent advent of the Apocalypse. Two years later, a fellow countrywoman of Bertolucci, Cavani launched the film thanks to which she can be described as famous (along with "The Skin" and "Berlin Interior"), namely "The Night Porter". Like "Last Tango in Paris," the film raised controversies over the delicate theme it addressed, but it did not go beyond debate. No trials, no burning, no censorship. The danger now is to evaluate "The Night Porter" as a work tolerated by critics only because it was born in the wake of the provocations of "Last Tango in Paris" and therefore underestimate it; just remember the words of Roger Ebert, film critic, for whom the feature film materialized in the mere attempt to disturb the viewer by exhuming a dark period in our history and stuffing it with provocative images that served no purpose.
Vienna, 1957. Lucia, wife of an orchestra conductor (Charlotte Rampling), a Jewish woman who personally experienced the tragedy of the Holocaust, lives around the world to follow her husband and his career. In a hotel in the Austrian capital, she recognizes in the porter an SS officer, Max, with whom she had established a twisted sadistic relationship in the concentration camp where she was detained. Initially frightened, the woman tries to avoid him but in view of a new departure of her husband decides to stay in Vienna and rekindle the masochistic bond with the officer (Dirk Bogarde). Meanwhile, the porter had begun a sort of therapy with a small group of former members of the Nazi army who, guided by a psychoanalyst, aim to erase the war crimes they committed. They are concerned by the union between Lucia and Max, who in his apartment recreate the conditions of filth and isolation of the camp. The former Nazis find themselves forced to eliminate both as potential witnesses.
"Vienna intrigues me, there is a sick atmosphere, it is the city of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, the initiators of modern unease". These were Cavani's words to legitimize the choice of setting. Indeed, a first aspect to highlight is precisely the protagonism of the city. Vienna is portrayed as a decadent, dark city that seems to want to fold in on itself to escape the shame of the crimes it has stained itself with. On this dark scenario move two characters who symbolize the victim-perpetrator relationship. Cavani analyzes it as a controversial phenomenon: the victim returns to the perpetrator, not only based on the sadistic relationship that leads her not only to suffer poor treatment but to demand it, but also because in each of us lies that violence that needs to be vented, and the state monopolizes such animal force for war purposes, thus legalizing it.
The lesson of Kubrick and Visconti's "Senso" is evident. But Cavani tends to exaggerate the morbid tones of the story with obvious references to homosexuality (the two men who copulate in front of all the other deportees), to selling one's body (the boy who prostitutes himself to the old "Countess," another hotel guest) and she exacerbates them without even hinting at diluting them with a moralism that in this context would be excessively out of place. The self-destruction towards which Max and Lucia move seems not to be calculated by the protagonists who do not accept limitations to the satisfaction of their basest, most primal instincts through which they realize their individuality.
An additional reason to watch the film is the presence in the cast of Philippe Leroy and Italo Moscati's hand in the screenplay.
A must-see.
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