Aimée & Jaguar

This is a beautiful story and a haunting film, set in crumbling Berlin near the end of Germany's second run at world domination. Felice is a young stenographer hiding her Jewish identity and passing stealthily through bombed-out Berlin. She runs with a pack of party-girls, lesbians all, who butterfly their nights away living for the moment in the face of destruction, persecution, and death.

Lilly is a German housewife with four children and a husband on the Russian front. She is introduced, however, as a mistress to a Nazi officer, and the viewer sees immediately that Lilly is simply lost...dutifully serving out her role(s) to the men in her life, yet stricken with a suspicion that love has escaped her.

Then she meets Felice...

The affair transforms both women. Lilly finds love and discovers who she really is, while Felice finds a reason to stop running.

It's easy to forget that bravery in wartime is not reserved solely fo combat soldiers. In these two women, we see courage, hope, and beauty emerge from ruin and desperation. As one of the minor characters points out late in the film, love should be appreciated wherever it can take root---especially when times and situations seem impossibly chaotic.

This director offers an underlying gentleness that makes the movie all the more effective. The performances are passionate and inspired. War news via radio broadcasts is masterfully woven in to frame the film while giving the viewer a sense that time is running out in Berlin. One knock on the film might be that there are too few sympathetic male characters. But, given the setting, maybe that was to be expected.

There does exist an expression in the German language that describes this movie perfectly. It's "großes Kino". Literally translated it means "big cinema" and you use it for movies that are really grand: Grand in their structure, grand in emotion and grand in class. If any movie deserves this title then it's this one.

The Plot: Berlin during WWII. We get an insight in the daily life of two complete different women who don't know each other. Lilly is young, married with four kids and because of this can afford a quite pleasant life (as Hitler was fond of mothers with many kids, they got more of everything than other families: more money, more food etc.). So while her husband is somewhere out there fighting the enemy, Lilly occasionally has affairs and while she has her fun with the men, a nanny is taking care of the kids. The other woman, also being quite young, is Felice. Felice is Jewish, works as a journalist for a newspaper and unlike Lilly has to daily cope with the fear of being discovered and transported to a KZ. As if it all were not enough, Felice is lesbian and enjoys life as much as possible in the circle of her (mostly lesbian) friends. Now, one day, Felice by chance sees Lilly in a theatre and almost instantly falls for her. Surprisingly enough Lilly loves her back and they begin an irresistible and passionate affair, which at the time and circumstances back there was like dancing on a volcano…

Of course the film deals with WWII and the holocaust here but the best thing about it is that it's only done on the side. The plot concentrates on the two women, the two different worlds they live in and their feelings towards each other. It's all so intensive and it's not all about two suffering girls who lived in a horrible time and were not allowed to love each other, it's about two strong women with a lust for life who tried not to care too much about the Nazi regime, but to concentrate on seizing the day. After watching it you don't only feel for them, you admire them for having been so strong and courageous. But most of all you get to appreciate love and life again.

A truly great film about a great love in times where this love seemed to be impossible. Based on true events.

The setting is Berlin during the last days of World War II. Aimée and Jaguar are nicknames for two women. Jaguar, or Felice Schragenheim, is played by Maria Schrader, a painfully slender, winsome, enigmatic, and devastatingly beautiful actress whose character rolls through this story like a loose cannon. She is well matched by Aimée, or Lilly Wust, played by Juliane Köhler, attractive but older, by turns lustful and distraught.

To survive in difficult times, young Felice poses for nude photos, works in a newspaper office, and gives dance lessons. Lilly is a housewife, mother of four small children, and her husband is at the eastern front. She entertains single men while her children go to the zoo "again?" Felice conceives a passion for Lilly from afar and writes her a romantic letter, signed "Jaguar."

I don't want to spoil the story, so I will say no more about it. This is a frankly sexy, exceedingly passionate movie based on a true story. The acting is spectacular, the recreation of time and place is convincing enough, and the music and photography are exemplary. In German with English subtitles. Highest recommendation.

In a few scenes, especially during the first hour, I had the impression that I was getting the text of what was being said, but was missing the subtext--i.e., what was really going on. I plan to watch it again before sending it back to Netflix, something I've not done previously (though I came close with High Noon). If you suspect that I conceived a passion for Felice from afar, you'd be right; you might, too, if you see this movie. But see it also because it's simply excellent from beginning to end.

Alan Nicoll

The story of "Aimée & Jaguar" is so strange it has to be true. If it were fiction, it would be accused of being utterly unbelievable. But true it is.

The movie is told in flashback from the recollections of an elderly German woman who relives the events in her life during WWII. Married to a Nazi officer who is away fighting on the eastern front, she meets, is courted by, and is seduced by a brash, beautiful lesbian. But not only is this woman a lesbian (this alone could have landed her in a concentration camp), she is also a Jew and a member of the anti-Nazi German underground. And all this in 1943 as Allied bombs begin dropping on the capital of the Third Reich. Yes, this couldn't be fiction.

The movie focuses on the relationship between the two women. It's a complicated relationship, and one that is not fully explored. What motivates the young Jewish woman to pursue the German officer's wife? Isn't there enough danger in her life already? And the hausfrau, was she a closet homosexual all along? Or is her motivation boredom, or the stress of wartime? These issues are not answered satisfactorily.

Another drawback is the strange lack of tension. Any one of a dozen missteps could send them and their friends to tortuous deaths at the hands of the Gestapo. But they don't seem to be all that concerned. I'd be a blithering wreck, but they party on (often with the Nazi Party).

I think these are valid criticisms but "Aimée & Jaguar" is still an interesting, of not odd, movie. It's still worth a rental.

In Berlin, along the Second World War, Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader) is a bright Jewish lesbian working in a Nazi newspaper under a false identity and being member of a resistance organization. Lilly Wust (Juliane Köhler) is a woman married with the soldier Günther Wust (Detlev Buck), who is fighting in the German front. Lilly is mother of four children and has never found love, being unfaithful to her husband. Felice meets Lilly and they fall in love for each other, adopting the nickname of Jaguar (Felice) and Aimée (Lilly), jeopardizing the safety of Felicia. This true unconventional and sensitive love story, in a sad period of German history, is a wonderful movie. The reconstitution of the Berlin in the war period is amazing. The performance of the cast is stunning, and the direction is outstanding. Although dealing with lesbian love, this powerful, unforgettable and touching romance is one of the most beautiful film I have recently seen. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): 'Aimée & Jaguar'