Conversation Piece Details

the best film ever!

This has class. Everything is perfect; the acting, the set, the incredible sensuality. All the actors are fabulous but Helmut Berger is fascinating and harrowingly beautiful. Every aspect of life is expressed in this masterpiece. This is not a film for everyone though. You need to be well versed in Art and culture and have a taste for sophistication.

This film is also a subtle fable about the dangers of far right-wing fanatics

[Highly rated reviewer]

Family group in an interior

Is the literal Italian title for this film and better reflects the action on screen. Visconti's main focus here is to observe what happens to an elderly and reclusive professor when his ordered life is sujected to powerful external forces; in this case a disfunctional 1970's family. He is bullied by the Countess, a wonderful creation of feminine power and manipulative charm, her young German lover and her two precocious teenage children who also enjoy the sexual charms of her lover. The professor is both repelled and irrisistably drawn to this 'family' with fairly predictable results. Modern audiences may be rather perplexed by the polital references which are never fully explored. And the claustrophobic interior settings where all the action (or inaction) takes place could be a bit boring. The English dubbing is less than ideal and produces an odd distancing effect (except for Burt Lancaster whose good old american english is left undisturbed). My verdict is that I liked this film and it is a must see for all of us who are interested in Visconti's films.