Such a frustrating disappointment

Crappy film

A different way of telling a story

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

To add a detail to the previous reviews, the subplot involving Martin and the little Jewish girl is taken from Dostoevsky's "The Demons". In the novel, it plays an important role. Here, it gets diluted in a constant stream of horrors that left me numb instead of outraged. The movie is ambitious, for sure: the lenght, the elaborate lighting, the Wagnerian music and furnace images scream that the director has intended to shoot a statement on Nazism and a master-piece of cinema. However, it is not historically accurate or even enlightening. Some Nazi officials have become perverted or have always been perverted. The leaders, however, and the civil servants have just adapted their normal life-style to the new order, even if it involved murder. This is the scary part: the feeling that the line between "nice" people and criminals was blurred for a moment, out of conformism or lack of insight.

Exploring the roots of the Nazi-Fascism rise in Germany of 1930's, Luchino Visconti and his "La Caduta Degli Dei" ("The Damned"), the first of the German trilogy ("Ludwig" and "Death in Venice" completing it) , is an impressive and carefully constructed epic about an aristocrat family's destruction, shattered with perversions, with a repulsive hunger for power in a society that changed its values like someone who changes his clothes.The von Essenbeck family story starts in 1933, during the Reichstag fire which happened on the same day as the birthday of Essenbeck's patriarch Josef (Albrecht Schoenhals), owner of a powerful weapon industry. After some deliberation and after this new happening in the country Josef decides to step away from his duties as president of the company, passing it to one of his relatives, Konstantin (René Koldehoff). From this point on all we're going to see a battle for power that slowly destroys each member of the Essenebck family. Murder, betrayal, fight for a higher status in this new Germany and other things will be decisive to unscrupulous people like Martin (Helmut Berger, great actor), one of the troubled and young members of this aristocratic family, and the one who'll be decisive in the way things move in the country and with his mother (Ingrid Thulin) and her husband Frederick Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), who are also trying to make their way in the family business, helped by Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), who carefully builds the web of deceptions in this game, joining one side at one time, then the other in a more appropriate time, depending of the circumstances.This year, it appeared in my hands a book of the script from this film plus an interview with the creators of it where they justify the film and the things they wanted to evocate with it by dealing with the seeds of Nazism and the way this was spread on a fragile Germany. What I saw in there was amazing, the thoughtful interviews and the greatly written script (drastically reduced in the filmed version). But what I've seen in the completed cinematic form was a little bit confusing, with few unexplained things (the presentation of the characters weren't so good just like the one of the written work, just an example) but a majestous work of art and history. Its grandiosity was beyond anything I've seen in a while, here's a spectacular tragedy of limitless dimensions that even if part of it is not real just looks and sounds a lot real to many of us. It's an accomplished and tragic epic full of blood, perversions, twisted personalities, insanity, greed, lust and other torments of the body and soul.For all I've seen and all the relevant things it had to show and say, I consider "La Caduta Degli Dei" a very good film on the pre WWII subject with outstanding acting by the cast, impressive art direction and impeccable costumes. A story to be seen multiple times to be fully comprehended and absorbed. 9/10

Visconti's THE DAMNED has generated a lot of reviews, articles and debates since its release in 1969. Writing a review for it seems almost pointless because almost everything has been written about it. What more can one add to the debate? THE DAMNED is a masterpiece, that goes without saying. It's a film that stands by its own, even compared to the director's other films. What's really beautiful about THE DAMNED is that it's quite obvious and not very subtle about it's portrayal of aristocratic decadence. For those who find the movie to be too long and too serious, well, were you watching the same film? There's so many levels of dark over-the-top humor in it that I lost count after a while. If THE DAMNED is seen by everyone has a masterpiece, it should only be described, imo, as a camp masterpiece. I've never seen such a brilliant depiction of decadence from such an obvious gay point of view, ever. Made in 1969 no less. Way before Fassbinder and other filmmakers who made film after film camping up the sordid lives of heterosexuals (war, wealth, power, etc).Though never all and out humorous, THE DAMNED is skewed in such a extremely dry sardonic manner that I started giggling at many scenes. The moment when this dark humor came to the fore occurred halfway into the movie, when we see a huge portrait of the baron at the head office. The portrait is a huge B&W of the man's angry face. The portrait is so ridiculous that I finally laughed out loud. There's no way that such an unflattering portrait would exist in reality. He looks like Boris Karloff on a bad day. And the reason why THE DAMNED is not to be taken too seriously.The whole film feels and looks like a 3 hour fashion magazine layout. The pure chic decadence it reeks is timeless. After watching the film, I now realize that most fashion designers and photographers of today have been copying the look and style of THE DAMNED. Sometimes, the whole film appears to be just surface, certainly because the characters that inhabit this world are so implausible, so over-the-top that they're divorced from any reality. Certainly the one wonderfully played by Helmut Berger (who was also in that Nazi "exploitation" flick, SALON KITTY). What a memorable character but, frankly, not a very realistic one. More of a symbolic one. And the confusing use of English (for most of the film) and German (for the very long orgy/massacre scene) enhances this detached symbolic approach. In fact, the whole film is pure symbolism. And it's quite brilliant in its use of symbolism: a wealthy aristocratic family is always filled with decadent family members scheming schemes but if there's one thing common about these families is that they're rarely affected by the outside world. These families live in worlds of their own, ruled by internal "laws" and "regulations" of their own. Visconti brilliantly uses this cloistered family dynamic coming apart before our very eyes to show how powerful and inescapable the rise of the Third Reich was and how something bigger than the wealthy family can filter into it and irrevocably control it because of the lack of morality that exists in such an aristocratic milieu. The aristocrats look down on the poor and less fortunate but here they are destroyed by a maniacal leader which came to power by preying on nationalistic fears of the general population. Oh the irony. I especially love the scenes with the maids and servants who never say anything or react to whatever happens around them. Visconti, who was raised and lived in such a milieu, is having way too much fun bringing down the Essenbeck family. THE DAMNED is definitely not for everyone but if you're game and you understand camp, this film is the pinnacle of camp. I doubt anything else will ever top it.

The great Luchino Visconti concocts a stunning banquet of horrors with some of his favorite gourmet dishes: the corruption and decadence of the upper classes, incest, mamma's boys and monstrous/fascinating mothers. The setting this time is National Socialist Germany where the perversions find their perfect home. There is, however, a slight but disturbing enjoyment of the whole putrid thing. Visconti's extraordinary attention to detail requires more than a couple of viewings. Ingrid Thulin's hairstyles are a masterpiece on their own. After Ingman Bergman, Visconti gives her her most showy role. She's a pervert's mother if I ever saw one. Magnificent in her over the top understatement. Creepy Helmut Berger is perfect here. Even his real voice adds to the luridness of his character. In "Ludwig" he was dubbed by Giancarlo Giannini transforming his third rate talent into something,seemingly, transcendental. Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Umberto Orsini plus the gorgeous Renaud Verley and Florinda Bolkan contribute considerably to the rigid and humorless vision of one of the greatest aesthetes the movies have ever known.