The night porter

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Movie
German title The night porter
Original title Il portiere di notte
Country of production Italy
original language English
Publishing year 1974
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (formerly 16, formerly 18)
Rod
Director Liliana Cavani
script Italo Moscati
Liliana Cavani
production Robert Gordon Edwards
Esa De Simone
music Daniele Paris
camera Alfio Contini
cut Franco Arcalli
occupation

The night porter (original title: Il portiere di notte ) is an Italian film by the director Liliana Cavani from 1974. The film depicts the sadomasochistic relationship between a survivor of the concentration camps and her former SS tormentor. The film made the leading actress Charlotte Rampling known internationally.

action

Twelve years after the end of the Second World War , the former SS officer Maximilian Theo Aldorfer works as a night porter in an elegant Viennese hotel. He fulfills all the wishes of his guests; so he regularly “mediates” the desired young men for their sexual satisfaction to an aging countess. Theo belongs to a small group of former National Socialists who do not even shy away from murder in order to cover up their previous crimes.

One day Lucia Atherton, who is a few years younger than her, stays in the hotel. She is married to an American conductor who is giving a guest performance in Vienna. Theo and Lucia recognize each other: as a young woman, she was interned in a concentration camp whose guards included Theo. A sadomasochistic relationship developed between the two of them, which went so far that he had a guard executed who tormented Lucia and gave her his severed head as a gift.

Theo and Lucia fall apart again, with the role of the dominant part of the relationship constantly changing. Lucia leaves her husband and moves into Theo's apartment. His former comrades, for whom the concentration camp survivor Lucia poses a danger, besiege the couple in Theo's apartment. Consumed by hunger and the hopelessness of their situation, they go out into the street one last time, Max in his SS uniform, Lucia in a dress that looks like a copy that Theo gave her during her imprisonment. They are gunned down on a bridge by a faceless assassin.

background

The night porter originated in Rome and Vienna. The film opened on April 11, 1974 in Italy and on February 14, 1975 in the Federal Republic of Germany .

When the film was released in the summer of 1974, Italian prosecutors declared the film to be immoral. The copies were confiscated and the film banned by the censors. The film industry then organized a one-day strike. Several directors, including Luchino Visconti , campaigned for the film to be released. In a court case it was finally declared a work of art and released without cuts.

Reviews

"As offensive as it is greasy, a despicable attempt to arouse us pleasantly by exploiting the memory of persecution and suffering."

- Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times

"This film represented the prototype of a whole wave of sometimes sensational exploitation films, often on the verge of pornography, which used the genocidal crimes of the Third Reich as a background for mostly trivial erotic dramas."

- icon magazine

"Cavani vividly shows the horror of the camps in a few gruesome sequences and is equally able to convey horror in quieter scenes [...] Even more unsettling in the context of the film are the skillfully captured moments of tenderness and peaceful love. [...] there is truth in [the film's] dark exploration of human nature. He argues that the destruction of the concentration camps did not put an end to the madness and cruelty of the era, and it certainly did not heal the scars of the victims. Seen in this way, the 'night porter' is an intense reminder of unpleasant but inevitable truths. "

- Channel 4

“Liliana Cavani [...] reduces the 'fascination with evil' to the aspect of sexual pathology. The problematic substance, which is definitely worth considering, becomes a colportage, the supposedly generally valid model case a cliché. Political porn trimmed for art with epigonal means. "

- Lexicon of international film

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The night porter in the Internet Movie Database .
  2. ↑ a b The night porter in the dictionary of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  3. ↑ Phelix, Thissen: Pioneers and celebrities of the modern sex film. Goldmann, Munich 1983, pp. 186-187
  4. ^ "[...] as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering." - Review by Roger Ebert on February 10, 1975, accessed on December 17, 2012.
  5. ↑ Marcus Stiglegger: Sadiconazista - Stereotyping the Holocaust in Exploitation Cinema on ikonenmagazin.de, accessed on December 17, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Cavani graphically portrays the horror of the camps in a few gruesome sequences, and is equally able to convey dread in quieter sequences [...] Even more unsettling, in the context of the film, are the skilfully captured moments of tenderness and peaceful love . […] There's truth in its dark exploration of human nature. It argues that the destruction of the concentration camps didn't mean an end to the era's madness and cruelty, and certainly didn't heal the victims' scars. As such, The Night Porter is a powerful reminder of unpleasant but necessary truths. ”- Review by Sam Jordison ( memento of July 14, 2003 in the Internet Archive ).