Customer Reviews

The Night Porter [VHS]

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4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
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"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.

Jeffrey Leach has written an extraordinarily insightful review of "The Night Porter," and I just want to add a few lines, as otherwise I'd just be repeating him. I recommend that anyone trying to understand this film read his review for help with the extremely difficult territory it explores.

For those who find the film to be exploitive or perverse (in an unrealistic way), please remember that we now know, as a result of so much information gathered regarding the sexuality of children who were abused during their formative years, that if a girl, young and inexperienced as Rampling's Lucia was when she was in the concentration camp, finds the right combination of emotional tenderness (as in Max's kissing of her wounded arm) and sexual stimulation/initiation, these experiences become so deeply imprinted as to be easily re-awakened in adulthood. After the intensity of such experiences, "normal" sexuality can seem dead and flat, not at all a match for the earlier times of dis-inhibtion. While this may be difficult and even offensive for those who have no similar touchstone of experience, psychologically it is accurate--frighteningly so--and "The Night Porter" shows us just how far it can go. When Lucia puts on the little girl's dress she's purchased, the image is jarring but sums up the truth of her stunted psychological and sexual development. We end up wondering whether she ever had a passionate moment with her oh-so-normal husband. With the experiences of the camp having been the most intense and indelible of her life, how could she not seek to re-create them? And how could Max, who despite his sadistic acts seems to have genuinely fallen in love with "his little girl," not fall backwards himself into the time when they were locked together in the deepest relationship of all--two people may never be closer than victim and torturer, completely dependent upon one another for the only human contact either has. Hence we see the Stockholm Syndrome constantly repeated, abused girls become abused women, etc. As Lucia says to a former Nazi doctor who comes to Max's apt. to check on the situation, "There is no cure." Whether one agrees or not, whether it is true for everyone or not, it is accepted as true by these two, and all their actions spring from this perception.

Liliana Cavani's precise and compassionate direction gives her characters the safety they needed (Rampling is astoundingly courageous in her no-holds-barred performance--most actresses would have run screaming from this role), and Bogarde is memorable as this strange combination of father/lover. Together the three create this dark and disturbing but deeply human story of damaged people who somehow find a way to live fully for a brief time before their end.

One last note: I agree with Mr. Leach that Criterion can be too expensive, but at least they give us what no one else will touch.

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.

I saw this movie in the summer of 1973 and now, 26 years later, I still remember it. Disturbing, with strong sexuality and some violence, it made me think about the ties that bind abusers and victims. The glass-eating scene, and the scene in the cabaret (with the severed head) were, at the same time, shocking and impossible to turn away from. This movie is, by turns, slow, shocking, and sad, but it is by no means boring. A good choice if you want to investigate the outer edge of the human psyche.

One of the great cult films of the early 70's, The Night Porter can be viewed as a treatise on the decadence of the Nazi regime or an exploration of the lingering ties between abuser and abused. Gruesome and surreal in some scenes, passionate and haunting in others, it is definitely one you will never forget. The cabaret scene and the final image of the two doomed companions walking along still haunts me today. If you are looking for a great cult movie or just something different, well now you've found it!

hmm. pouring over these reviews i must say, some very snippy hardcore film critics! i somtimes think a certain movie is totally mindblowing like joseph losey's "boom!", which many (including my gilrfriend!) consider campy and unwatchable. i loved that movie. i love the sensationalness of the "night porter." it is challenging, multi-layered and very entertaining. to get caught up in whether or not it is exploitation, or whether or not a thing like this could ever have really happened, is a big mistake.
of course it could really happen. all of those nazis running camps were humans, with the full amount of complexities that humans can have. no person is 100% saint or sinner. i view the holocaust in this movie as a backdrop for a strange love story. let's not forget that love can be destructive and most dysfunctional! she abandons her nice hubby for a nazi who tortured her. you're crazy if you think that's not realistic. that little plot turn happens in real life everyday the world over.
i think that critics of this film don't enjoy a celebration of life which includes very sordid idealogies. this film is a cross between "secretary" (which i hated) and "the pianist" (which was ok.) "the night porter is completely more enjoyable than those films. what a unique idea visualized. what great atmoshere and a great performances.
exploitation? i don't know. who defines these words anyway?
just go see it if you haven't yet and see for yourself. you have to like a bit bit of craziness and audacity to get anything out of this. this movie, up there with bogarde's "the servant" leave me feeling dirty and the end, and i like it!
they don't make em like they used to. can you imagine someone pitching a story like this to a producer today? good heavens!

This is an unforgettable film, one that will haunt any viewer for some time to come. Not nearly as explicit as some comments might lead one to believe, it nevertheless creates an atmosphere that is frighteningly real. Both main characters whose lives seem rather insignificant until their meeting, suddenly transform when they come together. If one forgets about their past, their affair would be envied. But knowing where they come from taints every detail of the present in haunting, dark shadows.

Every scene is exquisitely polished, and the dialogue is perfect. The supporting characters are fascinating, and the story unfolds easily and unexorably towards the ending that though predictable, still fills the viewer with the proper sense of dread. Perhaps the only detail that jars unpleasantly is the music - sometimes its absence seems detrimental, sometimes its presence seems equally so. It lacks the essential gloominess and feeling of forecoming disaster.

This isn't an easy movie to watch, but it is one that will never gather dust on your shelf of videos.

Being 21-years-old at the time of this review, I had never seen many of the decadent films to come out of Europe during the 1970s, let alone any that dealt with the Nazi Party or The Holocaust. After a good deal of reading online, I ordered "The Night Porter" from Amazon, and decided to give it a try.

Needless to say, I've been haunted for days.

Lucia (Charlotte Rampling in an outstanding performance) arrives in 1957 Vienna, along with her composer husband. A Holocaust survivor who has gone on to live quite a comfortable life, her picture-perfect existence is shattered when she encounters Max (Dirk Bogarde), her ex-Nazi captor, tormentor and lover, whom she had an affair with for many years.

Max is hiding out in Vienna, working as a night porter in the hotel and hoping to avoid standing trial for his crimes. A member of a kind of support group for fellow nazis, he and his comrades seekt to eliminate any witnesses who could send them to prison -- or even death. Agonized over his love for Lucia and the loyalty to his friends, Max decides to go into hiding, where the sadistic/masochistic nature of his past affair begins to resurface.

Never before had I seen a film quite so dark, so decadent, so psychologically penetrating. Rampling in particular is as beautiful as she is heartbreaking; for only someone who was truly mentally ill would continue a relationship as violent as the one she shared. Bogarde fairs equally as well, portraying Max's feelings of anger and love with an eerie authenticity.

The most disturbing part of the movie is that we the audience *know* there cannot be a happy ending; that disaster looms at any moment and that these two people have been traumatized (perhaps beyond repair) by the events of WWII. In my opinion, this is what made "The Night Porter" so realistic -- by showing that the after effects of the Holocaust can and will be felt for decades after the war ended. Perhaps even today.

In sum, if you are in the mood to watch a film that portrays violence and sex as one of the same, withouth the requisite happy ending, than "The Night Porter" may very well be for you. While the film doesn't go into much detail about the Nazi party speciifically, it builds such an aura of tension and doom that it doesn't even matter. This may not be the happiest film to ever be made, but it remains among the most memorable.

This is an Adult film in the true European sense of the word. It is a film which Hollywood could never have produced with such stark troubling undertones. It is a dark reflective movie with some extremely good acting, and the underlying sadomasochistic theme coupled with the way an abused prisoner returns in later life to figuratively imprison and finally destroy her captor is quite understated, leaving a lot to one's own imagination.
This is a movie which, quite frankly, I did not understand on the first viewing. I have now watched my copy no less than eight times and the subtle content and quality of the acting improves with each viewing.
I doubt that this would interest younger persons, although students of human behaviour would find a lot to further their education and understanding of a certain section of society. For those who can recall the 1930's and 40's, it has a definite sort of somber fascination and it present an unusally different angle from which to view the holocaust, except the tables are finally turned in this story.

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?