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Night Porter, The | Il portiere di notte – dir. Liliana Cavani, 1974

date: 01/08/2011, time: 12:00, place: The Big Cinema, film program: Liliana Cavani, artistic program: films
film program: Viaggio in Italia,

IT | 1974 | colour | 118 min
reż|dir Liliana Cavani pro|pro Esa De Simone, Robert Gordon Edwards scen|wr Barbara Alberti, Liliana Cavani zdj|ph Alfio Contini muz|mus Daniele Paris mon|ed Franco Arcalli ob|cast Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti, Giuseppe Addobbati, Isa Miranda dys|dis Cinecitta Luce

The Night Porter is a provocative and problematic film. Made in 1974 by controversial director Liliana Cavani movie pictures a dark vision of people – victims as well as knackers – emotionally doomed by their World War II past. The Night Porter not only shows a political continuation of war Nazism in 1957 Austria, but also psychological consequences suffered by it’s heroes still immersed in their nightmarish past. The action is set in 1957 Vienna, where a secret organization of former Nazis meets periodically and “eliminates” dangerous witnesses. Max, a former SS officer, is a night porter in an elegant hotel. One day in a beautiful woman entering the hotel’s lobby Max recognizes his former prisoner of concentration camp, Lucia, with which he has had an oppressive, sexual relationship. This reunion makes the perverse passion revive. Both of the heroes recreate situations from concentration camp, in which, paradoxically, both of them are victims.