The Night Porter (Criterion Collection Spine #59)
by Liliana Cavani
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charlotte Rampling, Dirk Bogarde, Gabriele Ferzetti, Giuseppe Addobbati, Philippe LeroyDirector: Liliana Cavani
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Alfio Contini
Writer: Liliana Cavani
Producer: Esa De Simone
Producer: Robert Gordon Edwards
Writer: Amedeo Pagani
Writer: Barbara Alberti
Writer: Italo Moscati
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: Italian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-03-28
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Night Porter (Criterion Collection Spine #59)
Movie Review: Richer than lust; darker than love...
Summary: 5 Stars
It's been compared to `Last Tango in Paris', and while it has some similarities, especially in its attempt to uncover the damage of sexual repression, I must say that `Il Portiere di Notte' is a film all its own. It has elements of `Last Tango in Paris' as well as `Sophie's Choice' and even the recent `The Reader', and while I can't say that it is better than any of those films (`Last Tango in Paris' is one of my top ten favorite films of all time, and `The Reader' is at least top fifty) I can say that it rests on par with them and deserves to be recognized for more than its frank sensuality.
The film follows a dangerous affair that breaks out between Max and Lucia. Max is a former Nazi guard who is working as a night porter in a hotel when he runs into Lucia, a former prisoner and one time lover of Max's. Their chance meeting couldn't have come at a worse time, for now Max is getting ready to stand trial for his war crimes, and the appearance of a live witness could jeopardize his chances of walking away unscathed. He is pressured by his friends to give her up, but his love for Lucia forces him to lock her away, working to keep her out of harms reach.
The film masterfully shows the mental regression that happens when your heart and your head are telling you two different things. Max and Lucia feed off one another. He is throwing away what may potentially be his freedom and she is throwing away her marriage, but together they sacrifice their sanity as they strive to remain together despite all obstacles.
Both Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling are stellar here, delivering career highlights. They cipher through a long line of emotions as they fully flesh out these two star-crossed lovers; developing their carnal lust as well as their progressive fear and bitter resentment. Through flashbacks we see how their relationship began and we see a fully side to their present day selves; a complete portrait of misguided passions and fatal mistakes. Bogarde is, in my personal opinion, the films major highlight. He captivates the screen and delivers a portrayal of a man desperate for the right answers but unwilling to stop long enough to uncover them. He is at the top of his game, marvelously unraveling Max's core.
Director/screenwriter Liliana Cavani constructs this film masterfully; and while it may be perceived as silly or campy to some, it never feels that way to me. In fact, it is within the rather campy moments that the film's morale or message on the damage caused by their repression can be seen to the full. Besides, the dedicated performances by the two leads help lessen the silliness and add layers to the poignancy of the film.
Summary of The Night Porter (Criterion Collection Spine #59)
In Liliana Cavani's scintillating drama, a concentration camp survivor (Charlotte Rampling) discovers her ex-torturer/lover (Dirk Bogarde) working as a night 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. Operatic and disturbing, The Night Porter deftly examines the cruelty and decadence of Nazi culture.For those who like their love stories dipped in decadence, Liliana Cavani's dark and disturbing 1974 drama--about a concentration camp survivor who fatefully comes face to face with her ex-Nazi captor and lover--has held up quite well over the years despite its sensationalistic tone. It helps that the mysterious, cobra-eyed Charlotte Rampling plays the survivor, Lucia, and that the unctuous and languid British actor, Dirk Bogarde, is former SS officer Max, a now-benign night porter at the Vienna hotel where the pair coincidentally collides. There is a haunted hollowness to these characters that resigns them to relive the sordid past that tragically binds them. Criterion's DVD offers the film in its best available condition, and the color has been restored to enhance its symbolic significance. The Night Porter uses landscape as character, and its desaturated tones evoke memory of the Holocaust and a shady 1950s Vienna plagued by post-World War?II guilt. In fact, this is a film full of shadows and shame, and Max and Lucia are victims of this frightening world in which nothing can be trusted and around every corner lurk spies in their house of forbidden love. --Paula Nechak
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