A former Nazi and concentration camp survivor inadvertently meet and rekindle their sadomasochistic desire for each other in this controversial work that feels somewhat uncompelling from moment to moment.
Review #2,743
Dir. Liliana Cavani
1974 | Italy | Drama | 118 min | 1.85:1 | English
Not rated – likely to be R21 for sexual scenes, nudity and mature theme
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy
Plot: A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.
Awards: –
Source: Luce Cinecitta
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Slightly Mature/Disturbing – Sadomasochistic Relationship; Nazism; Memory & Trauma
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Cult Arthouse
Viewed: Criterion Blu-ray
Spoilers: No
One of the more controversial films from the 1970s, The Night Porter is Liliana Cavani’s best-known work, and one that has, somewhat reductively, created a perception of her as an exploitative provocateur. Often misclassified as Nazisploitation, the film is perhaps more political art than debased exploitation.
Having a closer affinity to the artistic spirit of Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), also a misunderstood anti-fascist work, The Night Porter,however, felt much less compelling to me from moment to moment.
The performances and subject matter ultimately kept me going as Charlotte Rampling (in an early breakthrough role) plays Lucia, a concentration camp survivor who inadvertently encounters, after many years, a former Nazi (Dirk Bogarde) at a hotel where the latter is working in.
“Memory is not made of shadows, but of eyes which can stare straight at you and fingers which point at you.”
Through flashbacks of her time in the camp that are intercut with a present-day opera performance (an approach I found tonally weird), we begin to understand that their ‘master-slave’ relationship had been mutually self-sustaining, one that they find themselves hoping to rekindle sadomasochistically.
The fact that it seems the least concerning that Lucia is a married woman engaging in an extramarital affair is a testament to the power and trauma of history and memory in challenging social and moral codes.
As a film about the lingering spectres of Nazism that continue to haunt postwar Europe, The Night Porter also explores the guilt complex as clandestine ex-Nazis (yes, there’s more than one) hope to find survivors and subject them to self-staged trials that absolve the aggressors of their actions.
Cavani has repeatedly stressed that Lucia is not Jewish but meant to represent everyone who suffered under the Nazis, including the millions of non-Jewish prisoners who were held in concentration camps.
Grade: B-
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 