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The Damned
1969
A family's decline coincides with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and serves as an allegory for German society as a whole in this intoxicating work from Luchino Visconti. The Essenbeck family runs the German steel industry and the nervous patriarch attempts to appease the Nazis by appointing a successor sympathetic to their .. Read more
| Starring | Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger, Helmut Griem |
|---|---|
| Director | Luchino Visconti |
| Genres | Drama |
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The Damned
A family's decline coincides with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and serves as an allegory for German society as a whole in this intoxicating work from Luchino Visconti. The Essenbeck family runs the German steel industry and the nervous patriarch attempts to appease the Nazis by appointing a successor sympathetic to their cause. But his choice sets off a round of in-fighting as his children battle for control of the company. His young grandson eventually takes charge, but his drug addiction wreaks havoc on his family when he brutally rapes his mother and turns her into an addict. By the end of the film, the Nazis, including the party members in the family, are on the verge of taking over Europe.
| Starring | Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger, Helmut Griem, Charlotte Rampling |
|---|---|
| Director | Luchino Visconti |
| Studio | WARNER HOME VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 28 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | English |
| Released | DVD: 24 May 2004 Production year: 1969 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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The rise of fascism in the 1930s is mirrored by the antics of an upper-class German family (clearly based on the real-life Krupps) in director Luchino Visconti's Wagnerian-style drama. Dirk Bogarde was said to be unhappy with his role as the general manager of an armaments factory, who becomes embroiled in a power struggle as his employers, the Essenbecks, murder and blackmail each other for the ownership of the company, but turns in an accomplished performance, nonetheless. Also excellent is Helmut Berger as the son who rapes his mother, Ingrid Thulin, thus setting in motion a series of events that lead to tragedy. Though condemned by some as ponderous, this is still a remarkable work.
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A film which has been called baroque, Wagnerian, and just plain unpleasant; it is also rather a strain to watch, with exaggerated colour and make-up to match the rotting theme. Visconti uses sexual transgression as a sign of Fascism, while revealing, with
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Most helpful member's review
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20 out of 23 people found this review helpful
Not Visconti's best
The exciting set-piece action sequences, such as the destruction of the SA by the SS on The Night Of The Long Knives, are the best things about this film.The worst are the uneven,(badly-written and lip-synched), sometimes frankly terrible,performances of the distinguished pan-european cast.Was Helmut Berger,(the film's damnable heart), Visconti's lover?-why else employ this atrocious actor? The decadent amoral corruption of 1930's German aristocrats is better shown in the far superior Cabaret.Overly ambitious,over pitched,o-t-t grande guignol.Like The Night Porter,disturbing operatic Nazi decadence does not a good film make.
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Most recent members' review
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12 out of 17 people found this review helpful
perverted and compelling
The plot is an apparently straightforward family quarrel about the ownership of a steelworks, which in the Nazi era of the film would convey much power to the winner. However, the detail is a tense and lurid nightmare going right to the sordid heart of the psychology and sexuality of the participants. Beatifully shot in a way that would not be deemed 'commercially viable' these days, Visconti focuses in on eyes and mouths and the sweat constantly dripping down characters' faces, to convey their inner corruption. Bogarde and Thulin are superb, but the film revolves arround the extraordinary talent of Helmut Berger: petulant, nervous, highly sensual, physically gorgeous and way beyond the limits of sexual convention.
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A family's decline coincides with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and serves as an allegory for German society as a whole in this intoxicating work from Luchino Visconti. The Essenbeck family ... -