1974 ‘Il portiere di notte’ Directed by Liliana Cavani
A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a 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.
Yöportieri, Portero de noche, Nattportieren, Nachtportier, De Nachtportier, El portero de noche, 愛の嵐, Der Nachtportier, Ночной портье, O Porteiro da Noite, Nocny portier, Ο θυρωρός της νύχτας, Portier de nuit
War and historical adventure Intense violence and sexual transgression nazi, war, wwii, hitler or jewish violence, shock, disturbing, brutal or graphic sex, sexuality, relationships, erotic or feelings sexuality, sex, disturbed, unconventional or challenging horror, creepy, eerie, blood or gothic Show All…
Once upon a time, there might have been a few who took it seriously enough to enjoy it as renegade art, but today it is Nazi kitsch. Nothing here should qualify it as good in any frame of mind.
At a Vienna hotel in 1957, Charlotte Rampling is a concentration camp survivor who runs into Dick Bogarde the eponymous night porter who spends his days now quiet as "a church mouse," he being the camp officer and doctor who routinely raped her during World War II, and as exchange at the time, kept her alive. Is it conceivable that the 70's Me Generation was by that point too cut-off from the reality of horrors in Nazi Germany, so that a…
Hey, I know I haven’t seen you since you abused me at the Nazi concentration camp, and this is crazy but what if we recreate our masochistic relationship for the sake of romanticizing holocaust victims? haha just kidding… unless?
The slow buildup to Charlotte Rampling's and Dirk Bogarde's explosive reacquainting gets 4,5 stars from me, but sadly the movie takes a bit of a nosedive after that. Still, I enjoyed seeing their masochistic relationship unfold on screen. Rampling is magnificent of course, showing immense vulnerability but also tremendous strength.
i am the one guy giving this a bad rating not *because* it has nazi sexcapades, but because it doesn't have *enough*
Charlotte Rampling is an extraordinary masochist. If this had been the only film she was ever in she would’ve gone down as a timeless morality-bending punk icon. Through her we come to understand that not every victim is without cruelty nor every abuser without kindness. She eats jelly from a broken glass jar like a fucking animal until you don’t know if her mouth is smeared red with jelly or with gore from the shards of glass tearing away at her hungry lips. Then she ruts with her demon lover/controller until the past comes to kill her. She’s utterly amazing. But THE NIGHT PORTER is more than a bold, almost crazed, performance by Rampling. It's an evolving piece of cinema.…
"Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage in the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric."
–Theodor Adorno, "Cultural Criticism and Society"
"Adorno does not wish to negate representation; on the contrary, he argues that the aesthetics of post-Holocaust poetry are of a particular 'barbaric' character... Adorno is attempting to describe a new form of poetry which is stylistically and thematically awkward. The language is necessarily unstable because it engages with the embarrassing struggle — which often ends in failure — to forge a language adequate to represent the horror of the Holocaust... This is the key to his dialectical evaluation of contemporary poetry. Starting from the premise that…
With its tantalising poster and baiting tagline, The Night porter has been piquing my interest for a while now, and after ScreeningNotes' in-depth analysis I couldn't wait any longer and had to put it on.
A 'romance' in the absolute broadest sense of the word; one that sparked, of all possible places, in a Nazi concentration camp, and which rekindled over a decade later in a Vienna hotel. Max, once a SS officer at the camp, now hides 'in the shadows' from his past as a night porter at the hotel. One day he rubs eyeballs with Lucia, who's accompanying her American orchestra conductor husband. Max and Lucia have met before, when she was held prisoner at Max' camp, and…
keeping my thoughts on this film between me and the lord. nobody should be proclaiming strong opinions on this picture in public spaces.
Included In Lists:
Criterion Collection - #59
Review In A Nutshell:
A film that feels profound on its surface but sitting through it was a heavy chore due to its unappealing characters, led with unaffecting chemistry from its two leads.
The film also does not seem as controversial as the film's promotion suggests; I'm sure that I have seen films released before or during the same time that has touched on similar topics more intellectually provocative.
It was all these elements together that made it difficult to maintain my concentration; finding myself constantly at a drift. It is simply possible that I did not give the film the patience and effort it deserves, which is why there is not a doubt that I would come back to this in the future.
High camp transgressions of sadomasochistic sex, Nazism and trauma bonding promptly gave The Night Porter a very controversial reputation, and for good reason; this highly divisive work—while not nearly as graphic or visually disturbing as I expected it to be—is unsettling because it depicts its subjects with such objectivity and lack of emotion that it almost works against the film. For the first hour I was slightly disinterested and underwhelmed, despite some interesting meditations on how past trauma affects those who’ve suffered, and I think maybe I was expecting something else entirely going into this film based on the harsh reputation it has for being overly smutty and sadistic. There is plenty of that to be found here, but I think…
