It is Vienna in 1957. Max (Dirk Bogarde) is the night porter in a luxury hotel. He had been a concentration camp guard during the war and had done some terrible things. He is on the list of wanted war criminals but he is considered to be too unimportant to make tracking him down worthwhile.
He belongs to an organisation of former SS officers. They protect each other by destroying incriminating evidence and occasionally eliminating witnesses. They conduct mock trials as a way of trying to exorcise their guilt feelings although at the same time that they try to deny those feelings. Max thinks they’re fools. The war was a long time ago. He just wants to live a quiet anonymous life. It’s not that he feels no guilt. He simply doesn’t see anything to be gained by dwelling on the past.
Then he runs into Lucia (Charlotte Rampling). They recognise each other. They knew each other very well during the war. Lucia was a prisoner at one of the camps. Max was a guard.
One thing that should be noted is that Lucia is not Jewish. She was sent to a concentration camp because she was the daughter of a communist and she was considered to be politically suspect. Liliana Cavani was inspired to make this movie after interviewing female camp survivors for a documentary. The women she interviewed had all been sent to the camps for being communists. Cavani clearly wanted her protagonist to be such a woman.
It’s perhaps worth noting that had Lucia been Jewish the film would have had zero chance of being released. The subject matter was already touchy enough.
Lucia is married to an orchestra conductor. But the wartime relationship between Max and Lucia cannot be left in the past. They rekindle the relationship which is, for various reasons, a very dangerous thing to do. Max’s old wartime comrades may well now decide to hunt down Max and Lucia.
The story in broad outline could have been made into a safe conventional politically acceptable movie but Cavani consistently choose bold options rather than safe options. She presumably had no interest in telling the kind of story that had already been told countless times.
The events during the war are told in brief flashbacks scattered throughout the movie.
The first safe option would have been to make it absolutely explicit that Lucia was forced into her wartime relationship with Max. But Cavani does not do this. Of course Lucia would have been under immense pressure but the matter is left uncertain.
That wartime relationship was complex. Max fell hopelessly in love with Lucia. Lucia’s emotions are left ambiguous but was is made quite explicit is that she was intensely sexually attracted to Max.
When the relationship is revived Max falls in love with Lucia all over again. This time it is obvious that Lucia is in love with him. And her sexual hunger for him is breathtaking.
It is also obvious that Lucia is now a very willing participant indeed. She leaves her husband to move in with Max.
The success of the movie depends to a huge degree on the ability of the two leads to sell this story to us. Dirk Bogarde is perfectly cast. He was superb at playing contradictory and ambiguous characters. The audience has to be able to see Lucia’s attraction to Max as plausible. Bogarde has the good looks, charm and self-confidence to do this. A young woman might well find such a man very very appealing. Bogarde also conveys to us Max’s dark side. He is a sadist. That’s why he excites Lucia so much. That’s something that Lucia likes in a man.
Rampling is superb. She easily convinces us of Lucia’s lust for Max but she keeps Lucia’s emotions just mysterious enough to keep us interested. Could she truly be madly in love with Max or is it just her sexual hunger? These are things that need to remain uncertain as long as possible.
This movie contains of the great cinematic sex scenes. It’s not graphic and it’s not erotic but it’s unbelievably intense.
In my view the wartime events are not in themselves a major focus except insofar as they represent lives lived in darkness. Cavani has said that Max and Lucia are two people trying to escape from the darkness into the light. Of course there is the darkness within them as well. Perhaps love can redeem them. Perhaps even Max can be redeemed by love. The idea of a war criminal being redeemed by love was certainly going tp push people’s buttons in 1974.
Max is a hunted man and he’s a man in love, and he’s a man in love. An audience is always going to be inclined to be at least a little sympathetic to such a character. On the other hand we know some of the things that Max has done. Our feelings about him are going to be a little conflicted, which one assumes was precisely what Cavani was aiming for.
There’s also the the fact that Lucia cannot be considered as a straightforward victim. Perhaps not a victim at all. Perhaps party a victim. Perhaps partly guilty. She knows the things that Max did during the war. Again we’re going to feel conflicted about this character.
1974 was about the time that Stockholm Syndrome was first identified and there is perhaps a touch of that here.
The Night Porter is confronting and provocative but we need confronting and provocative movies. Highly recommended.
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