The Damned Reviews

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.

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.

Damned good

A great movie with a powerful theme and memorable performances. This is one that stays with you. The story is that of a German family, a rich and powerful steelmaking dynasty, manipulated and ultimately destroyed by Hitler's regime.

This film then is an allegory of how the German people allowed themselves to became part of the Nazi evil and sleepwalked to destruction. In an atmosphere of greed, decadence and moral decay we witness the unrelenting slide into horror. This is Good versus Evil, with Good trampled under jackboots.

The movie itself has faults. It has that sleazy pan-European feel of these films of the period, and that tends to contribute to some confusion in the narrative. It is not always clear as to who is who, what is happening and who did what. This is technique of course to make the audience think, but sometimes you need the filmmaker to make things obvious rather than to be too tricky.

Still, a definite classic, with great actors on top form. Ingrid Thulin is mesmerising, and Dirk's eyebrow has never acted better. After watching the film you have a better idea of how the little corporal could do what he did.

The Damned

Visconti shows the power of corrupted persons and the problems of becoming implicated in corrupt events. A really scary movie where the bad do not get their comeuppance as one might expect. The very worst and most corrupt and perverted of the characters is the final winner. A salutary warning in the political sense.

Troubling

Visconti's epic portrait of a wealthy German family during the rise of fascism is an extremely difficult film.

It is demandingly paced and plotted, with several plot points apparently dependant upon (or certainly clarified by) the viewer having a working knowledge of 1930s German history.

Additionally, the strongly allegorical story does on occasion become overly melodramatic and unintentionally farcical by its very nature, as characters meant to represent different aspects of Germany are paraded before the audience in a rather unsubtle and sometimes unnecessarily unpleasant way.

Visconti's take on sexual deviance also appears to lump homosexuality in with paedophilia and incest as symptoms of a declining morality, an idea that sits very uncomfortably today.

The film is certainly recommended for fans of the director, and some excellent and fearless performances (particularly from Berger and Bogarde) and sumptuous production design make the film a worthy watch for a viewer prepared to deal with the difficult subject matter and an often troubling representation of it.

This film is lubed

I'm on the verge of giving up with Visconti. No matter how hard I try my mind just kind of slips off his films as if they're lubed. It's just like that thing when you're reading and you realise you've got to the bottom of a page without taking anything in.

In my personal opinion, Visconti can't tell a story. He can do lots of other things - I would say his most attractive asset is glamour, as well as an obvious seriousness of intention. But basic story telling - no.

Maybe it's that his films should really be seen in the cinema. Maybe they've just dated very badly - I mean maybe they were tremendous at the time. But there's something so stiflingly, clunkingly specific about The Damned. Nothing is left to my imagination. Nothing is there to be interpreted. It's like being hit over the head with an exquisitely upholstered, rather camp mallet; or being pinned to the ground and forced to wear eyeliner.

You may well pull in a dazzling dream cast from the cream of Euro stardom - I can't remember why I put The Damned on my wish list, but it was probably because of the cast, which includes Ingrid Thulin and Dirk Bogart - but honestly, apart from the glamour it entails, what is the point if the English (why?) dialogue's going to be mangled by a series of dodgey accents, further muddying an already incomprehensible plot? What's the point if you're then going to cast your lover in the central role, who may look like an Aryan wet dream, but when it comes to acting is less master-race and more egg-and-spoon?

I don't get it Luchino. Fill me in - give me some background. Use a wide brush once in a while. Don't assume I'm up on the history of the unification of Italy or the rise of fascism in central Europe. I'm not. I'm slow. Stop telling what I should be thinking and just tell me the f****ng story for once!

This film is a glossy, extravagantly costumed, occasionally erotic (if perfect blonde cheekbones and big shiny man boots do it for you), terribly made (what's with the constant zoom-ins? I felt sea-sick) mess. Interesting to movie nerds as an obvious reference for Fosse's excellent Cabaret, made a couple of years later. Rent that instead. It does the same job but better, includes some of the same cast, and doesn't dally about frustratingly on the fringes of camp but plunges right in with the full Minnelli.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Damned shame

Knowing what we know now, this is clearly Visconti’s vehicle for his lover Helmut Berger Amusing to see that he transferred from this Dynasty of the Weimar to the American prime time version.

But equating the Nazis regime with this parade of personal decadence presided over by a hissy queen in fancy dress seems to diminish Visconti’s central argument that the most hated political and social movement in history sprang from the industrialist/capitalist base on which it relied for material support.

In purely cinema terms, the shocks come thick and fast – how did he get away with such poor casting, did Charlotte Rampling really used to talk like that, what was Dirk Bogarde thinking of, what happened to the cinematic genius that brought us La Terra Trema?

One to see simply to complete the Visconti opus – but not one to watch again.

A work of Art

It’s one man's vision. The acting and scripting are completely over the top – it was very daring to attempt this, and for me it works. Visconti came from an Italian dynastic family with a history going back a thousand years - then along came Mussolini. I’m sure it is from the heart and based on events of the time. I think it’s superb.