The Night Porter (1974)

This movie shows us that once a Nazi always a Nazi, but Nazis, like all humans make certain concessions to their lust for pleasure, especially the pleasure to be had from a woman, especially when she is at their mercy. From the woman's point of view her gratitude for the mercy the Nazi has shown her, knows no bounds and she is ready to place herself, once again, but this time voluntarily at his mercy, when she meets him after the war and she suffers the consequences. These actually could have been good, that is she could have ended up having a happy marriage with the Nazi who had rescued her. But loyal Nazis still thrived even after the war and a pure blood German living with a Jewess was intolerable in their scheme of things. Their pursuit of the couple creates the tension that makes this movie an excellent thriller. This added to raising the question of how we are to relate to Nazis who had mercy on their subjects, makes this movie great.

*WARNING!* - Don't let this DVD's tantalizingly provocative cover art of a young Charlotte Rampling in leatherette, Nazi gear fool you - 'Cause, believe me, when it comes to the likes of kink and depravity (with a bitter slice of S&M thrown in for good measure), The Night Porter plays it way too safe, and, unfortunately, doesn't deliver the wallop that it most certainly should have.Yes. This train wreck (of a Romeo & Juliet story) did contain some interesting and intriguing moments, but, overall, its unconventional storyline was set (throughout its entire 2-hour running time) at a very low simmer and never once did it reach the boiling point, as far as I'm concerned.Perhaps, now 40 years later, The Night Porter is about due for a remake.... And, in this mighty grim day and age (of insatiable tastes for unbridled violence and cruelty) that we now live in - I'm sure there's bound to be some "no-holds-barred" director out there who's capable of wetting the whistles of all those boys and girls across the nation, and beyond, who crave it dished up totally rough and raunchy, Nazi-style.

The Night Porter is a film that earned a controversial reputation back in the 70's when it was made. In truth, it still has retained a lot of its infamy even today. The reason for this was that it was considered by some as being exploitative and for trivialising the Holocaust. Perhaps more specifically, its mixture of eroticism with Nazis is one that I am guessing has the power to make people feel very uncomfortable. Its story centres on Max, a night porter working in a Vienna hotel in 1957. One day a young woman guest called Lucia arrives at the hotel and his past catches up with him. It turns out he was an S.S. officer who worked at a concentration camp during WWII and Lucia was an inmate who he used as a sexual slave. Their chance encounter leads them to embark on another dark sexual relationship but with slightly different power dynamics. Meanwhile former Nazi comrades of Max have become aware of the situation and plan to silence Lucia who is a potential witness to their war crimes.The central plot idea that underpins the narrative is the Stockholm syndrome. This is a known psychological condition where those repressed and incarcerated form romantic bonds with their captors. It's especially troubling here in that the master and servant are an S.S. officer and his Jewish victim. The sheer real life horror of the Holocaust ensures that this is dark waters for the basis of a film. But overall, despite pushing several provocative buttons along the way, this isn't a very exploitative film. It's certainly a long way away from the Nazisploitation cycle of films that emerged in Italy shortly after this one. Those films were unashamedly sexploitation flicks that really were pushing the limits of good taste. In fact, one of the more notorious examples The Gestapo's Last Orgy also features a dark romance between a camp commandant and Jewish girl, although that's more or less where comparisons end with The Night Porter. No, this is actually a pretty sober and cold movie with a focus squarely on the psychological aspects rather than the salacious ones. It examines a damaged woman's strange compulsions and the inconsistent impulses of her ex-Nazi captor.Although, to be perfectly honest, I felt the film itself is most memorable cinematically when it does feature the flashbacks to the concentration camp. These scenes are always presented in an unreal, dream-like fashion. They never seem very real and this I guess gives the film a bit of overall distance which allows it a bit of leeway regarding its controversial subject matter. Those scenes do feature some very sinister yet surreal moments like the death carnival ride. Yet they often are simply strange such as the S.S. man who performs a homo-erotic ballet routine for his fellow Nazis or Lucia's erotic song and dance number replete with Nazi regalia, which is a sequence that really accentuates the Nazi erotica angle which is understandably problematic for some.The film benefits considerably for having Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling in the central roles. These are difficult characters for actors to tackle to say the least but these two are pretty fearless performers. The acting style is very mannered, as opposed to realistic but this fits in with the overall detached feeling that the film has as a whole. This goes against it a bit to be fair, as it isn't always as engaging as it could be and the pace is pretty slow. It means that this is a film with considerable interest in terms of brave subject matter but one that isn't very easy to connect with. Although given the central idea, this may not be strictly such a bad thing.

We Americans are, of course, famous for, among other things, our simplistic view of history. Most of us learned that Germany lost WWII, end of problem. I think The Night Porter is of value mainly because it points out, rather vividly, that Nazis did not disappear, they went into hiding. Not many other films seriously deal with that reality. So, yes, all the trappings of Nazism are indeed on display and that is understandably controversial. But if you look a little deeper you will see a more penetrating analysis of the problem of evil. The end of WWII was not end of story. The fact that this film dramatizes the continuation of Nazi ideology makes it, perhaps surprisingly, worthwhile.