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The Night Porter (1974)

Probing the psychological depths of the relationships that evolved during and following the holocaust, Liliana Cavani unearths some of the most unsettling and taboo imagery ever conceived to define the mindset that fueled the horror. Yet the various tableaux are not conjured merely to unnerve the audience, but to evoke in every scene the subjective kind of realism in which the character’s psyches determine and are determined interminably by the mis-en-scene. Though other films have since tried to capture the same effect of bringing the audience so deep into the way of thinking that characterized the Nazis and their prey—the 1998 film Apt Pupil directed by Bryan Singer comes to mind as a like-minded meditation on the nature and appeal of the mid-century Germanic villainy and the inherent dangers of its resurrection that borrowed heavily on themes and images evoked by Cavani—few others have been as successful in realizing a true visual structure that so clearly evokes the grotesque descent into madness that was state-sanctioned for twelve years.

The Night Porter imagines the grotesque, sordid possibilities of a love affair between an SS officer and a concentration camp inmate whom he had molested. The setting is years after the war, and the officer, Max, is in hiding as a night porter at a hotel apparently stocked by a number of ex-Nazis and their sympathizers. His surviving comrades, plagued with the guilt of their former lives, have taken it upon themselves to wipe the record clean. They hold fake trials in which they are exonerated of any wrongdoing by each other and all the evidence against them is collected and symbolically “filed away,” all incriminating documents and pesky witnesses conveniently disposed. However, Max only wishes to hide away and live out the rest of his days in quiet, until fate throws him together with Lucia, his precious “little girl” from the camps. Though his former comrades insist she too must be filed away, lest she stand as continuing evidence of their wartime atrocities, Max abducts Lucia and hides away with her in his apartment as he attempts to relive their prior relationship. Lucia, a mess of contradictions and unnerved by her experiences acts as much an instigator as a victim, engaging in the same series of sadistic games as her apparent captor. They both fixate on the violent, sexually charged relationship between the oppressed and oppressor which forever marks them.

In making Night Porter Cavani was not interested in subscribing to any standard notion of realism. Instead, she hoped to visually interpret a personalized, subjective view that went above them. For example, Cavani at times utilizes a lighting scheme that proposes doorways and windows where none exist while at other times the lighting is such that almost none of the action can be perceived, as in the final scenes prior to the fatal end at the bridge. The thematic and personal implications for this conception are wide-ranging, from acting as a visual representation of the protagonists’ conflicting desires for escape and isolation as well as the enshrouding sense of the latter that overwhelms the deeper one plunges into the film. Intelligent use of lenses that distort images and lend a murky, aquatic atmosphere grants the entire film a dream-like quality. This notion of the film’s ersatz reality has poignant implications for this tragic tale.

The motif of being stuck in a perpetual fantasy of unbridled ecstasy and fear is not necessarily unusual in and of itself, but the way it is experienced by various characters drops many of the standards extolled by critics and auteurs of prior years. The miniature culture of former Nazis and their sympathizers with whom Max is externally linked by his past seem at first glance to bear the weight of prior filmic interpretations of former Nazis and in some way they do. The Germaneness of the characters, particularly the monocle-wearing Klaus, and the group’s determination to hold onto some semblance of an ambiguous fascist ideology is played almost as parody. However, as much as the rhetoric of these characters seems to dwell in the past, these former culprits appear to be perfectly suited to the new world around them. They are able to function as a sometimes comic, sometimes threatening, but almost normalized element of modern post-war society.

Max and Lucia are the ones viewed as aberrations for their inability to exist beyond their initial dream. The only reality they continue to believe in is the one created by circumstances that are no longer apparent, the Nazi regime and the politics of war. Yet such is their desire for the sheer emotion and unrestrained feeling they brought about in one another through their unique overseer/prisoner relationship that they actively seek to recreate the conditions that made it possible, each sinking further from social norms as they become more absorbed in their shared perception of the past. In effect, their relationship is seen as the taboo and wicked element in society, which must be isolated and eliminated before it threatens the social fabric. This straightening out, or “filing away” of the protagonists is not only orchestrated by the ardent fascists. Practically every character in the film is in some way complicit in the crime, lending further credence to the concept of Max and Lucia’s “love” as an unpardonable threat to all society.

The dream signifies an illusion, an impossible amalgam of distortions based on past knowledge. No single scene captures the psychological and historical implications of Cavani’s creation than Lucia’s caricature of the cabaret singer. Here the imagery is the stuff of nightmares, as Lucia dances and sings while surrounded by shadows, smoke, and glaring SS in uniforms and tacit masks. Yet, the utter ridiculousness of the situation checks the fear of the audience and transforms it into a fascination of Lucia who, with faux SS regalia and bare chest is suggested to be the image of sexuality and stoic eroticism that was an appealing aspect of the Nazi message to perpetrators and could also consume its victims, as in the whores and Lucia. Yet the image is played up as a farce held together by costumes and willing actors. Cavani reduces the Nazi message to that of mere artifice, or a carnival show for kiddies (it is no mistake that an early scene depicting Max first filming Lucia equates the drama with him filming her on an immense carnival ride).

The most haunting and fearless scene in the film, from a personal perspective, would have to be the finale on the bridge, in which both the Nazi and his apparent prisoner fully give in to their desire to perpetually live out the horrors of their war experiences. Cavani portrays this final plunge, or devolution through simple pageantry, again highlighting the smoke and mirrors foundation of fascism. Attire was always an important aspect of the holocaust, with the positions of each player involved, as in theatre or the previously mentioned cabaret scene, clearly delineated by their dress. The fearsome black get-up of the SS against the stark, lined frocks of the prisoners. As the lilting cabaret music plays out as a funeral ode, Max, donning his full SS uniform escorts a frail Lucia whom he has carefully dressed in clothing similar to what she had when he first spotted her in a line of prisoners. They walk, arm in arm, silently across a fog-laden bridge as dawn approaches. The haunting event highlights the futility of their quest to escape the societal glare and how their being affected by the events of the past prevents their transition into the present. They belong to a bygone era, and are ostensibly returned to it by two bullets.

Written by: Alexander Rogers

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