Compelling character study of a man (Dirk Bogarde as Max) who is both eager to erase his past and determined to cling to its pleasures. Max is the ex-SS officer who enjoyed a complex, sado-masochistic relationship during WW2 with Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), his Jewish captive. When, more than a decade and a half later, Lucia turns up at the hotel where Max now works as a night porter, old pains and pleasures are reignited.
Liliana Cavani's film is potent, powerful stuff, a kaleidescope of human observations and ideas. Bogarde's performance is an intense and tortured one, as is Rampling's essaying of the fascinating Lucia. A central plot thread concerning a core of ex-SS officers battling to erase their official records while fighting just as hard to maintain their inner power structure is the material of explosive drama.
Bogarde and Rampling's addiction to their checkered history rings absolutely true and provides for a series of potent erotic interludes. Cavani's handling of the script's multiple layers is expert, while the stately, inventive cinematography by Alfio Contini is striking and truly an example of style following substance.
A thriller, a love story, and a study of grotesque sexual politics, "The Night Porter" is an outstanding achievement, and a prime exhibit of a type of cinema that has now vanished. In every sense, a work that begins with the intellect.
Liliana Cavani's film is potent, powerful stuff, a kaleidescope of human observations and ideas. Bogarde's performance is an intense and tortured one, as is Rampling's essaying of the fascinating Lucia. A central plot thread concerning a core of ex-SS officers battling to erase their official records while fighting just as hard to maintain their inner power structure is the material of explosive drama.
Bogarde and Rampling's addiction to their checkered history rings absolutely true and provides for a series of potent erotic interludes. Cavani's handling of the script's multiple layers is expert, while the stately, inventive cinematography by Alfio Contini is striking and truly an example of style following substance.
A thriller, a love story, and a study of grotesque sexual politics, "The Night Porter" is an outstanding achievement, and a prime exhibit of a type of cinema that has now vanished. In every sense, a work that begins with the intellect.