Os Deuses Malditos

Visconti outdid himself on this one! In 'The Damned' we take a long look into the dark world of a perverted German family during Hitler's rise to power. Little bit of everything in this one; treachery, murder, incest, molestation... nothing pretty here, but a fantastic story. Well told and nicely photographed, The Damned is not for the squeamish, but very much worth a look.

The Damned tells the story about the Nazi consolidation of power from the Reichstag fire of 1933 through the famous Night Of The Long Knives purge in 1934 as seen through the eyes of a prominent German industrial family, the Von Essenbachs. The Von Essenbachs are a Prussian Junker clan who survived World War I with fortune intact. They are a munitions manufacturing outfit based on the real life Krupps and in order to survive the Great Depression and the coming Nazi preventive counterrevolution they make a deal with the new Third Reich.

As we know from history the Nazis manufactured an incident with the famous Reichstag fire to spread fear and create the climate for the new Chancellor Adolph Hitler to assume dictatorial powers. The next year was a struggle for power within the Nazi movement as well as the country. The Von Essenbachs have their own power struggles with in the family that parallel the Nazis and the country.

Luchino Visconti based some of his characters on some real life German personalities of the day. Dirk Bogarde is based on Hjalmar Schacht the finance minister who in fact was a technician and who did in fact play a large role in German recovery from the Depression. Bogarde is a new man brought in to reorganize the munitions factory and who like Schacht thinks he can ride the tiger.

Swedish actress Ingrid Thulin plays the daughter of the patriarch of the clan Albrecht Schoenhals. She's one vicious woman who has bought completely into the Nazi ideology. I believe she's based on Joseph Goebbels wife Magda, one of the most terrifying women in history. Though the two of them indulged in many affairs, they were committed partners in support of Hitler. Magda Goebbels was a woman who along with her husband so couldn't stand the thought of Germany losing World War II and her children living under Russian/Slavic occupation that she and Joe killed their seven kids as well as themselves. One of the sickest people in history and I can definitely see Thulin doing the same thing in the same circumstances.

The Damned was nominated for an Oscar in 1969 for Best Original Screenplay, it lost to the more popular Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. As much as I like Newman and Redford this story is far better. Sadly this was the only nomination for the film, incredibly not even nominated for Best Foreign Film.

As Visconti states in the film Nazism may have been born with Hitler and discontented veterans of World War I, but it was incubated in the factories of Germany during the Great Depression. It was fed to the workers by the owners who were in terror of a Communist revolution. In many ways the Nazi takeover was a preemptive strike against that occurring, but it was a horrible price.

Several times watching 'The Damned' I had to pinch myself. Director Visconti is generally well respected as a serious film maker, but this?! I don't see how anyone can take this one at all seriously! It is sensationalistic, sleazy, melodramatic and trashy. It is also wonderfully entertaining. As an attempt to understand 1930s Germany and the rise of Nazism it's a joke, but as pure camp it is a classic. To keep your head straight regarding the various characters and who is using, manipulating, and betraying who you almost need graph paper. Even the blurb on the back of the old VHS tape I watched got the plot wrong, confusing one character for another. Anyway, there's mainly four major players to focus on. Dirk Bogarde ('The Servant') plays the ambitious Bruckmann who is the lover of Baroness von Essenback ('Salon Kitty's Ingrid Thulin), part of a wealthy family of industrialists. Bruckmann's cousin Aschenbach ('Cabaret's Helmut Griem), an SS officer, has plenty of his own schemes, ultimately wishing to get control of the von Essenback empire, either directly or indirectly. Finally there is the Baroness' son Martin, initially an effete type, but who eventually turns into the biggest monster of them all. Martin is played by cult legend Helmut Berger ('Salon Kitty', 'Mad Dog', 'Faceless'). The credits bill him as "introducing", and while 'The Damned' isn't actually his film debut it does make a hell of an introduction to this compelling actor! We first see him in full drag performing a song, then we soon discover he is involved in an incestuous relationship with his mother, also appears to be gay, AND has a perverted fixation on little girls. Yes, he is one mixed up crazy cat! Berger's performance in this movie is sensational and the main reason to watch this epic. The other leads are all very good, and there are also some memorable bits by the supporting cast, which includes Charlotte Rampling ('Zardoz'), who plays a von Essenbeck associate who unfortunately gets in their way with disastrous results. 'The Damned' is pure camp all the way, but I couldn't stop watching it. Forget your preconceptions, accept it for what it actually is, and you will find yourself hooked!

I had to hunt for this video, but found it quite surprisingly at my local independent video store. Having recently seen Helmut Berger in in the film Ludwig, I was curious to see him in this role which apparently was his "introduction" to film. He is an amazing actor and while there were many disturbing moments in this film he was true to his character. I saw the character of Martin as not so much "damned" but as a "fallen" being: tortured by his own inner impulses, his feelings of rejection by his mother, etc. which culminate in providing perfect figure for Nazi terror. It is a shame that Helmut Berger has not received more recognition in the US. There are so many international actors who are almost complete unknowns in the states. Sad. I love Visconti's use of dark lighting and shadows. In this film as in Ludwig it added to the already "dark" subject matter, and is a visual treat.

This really is Luchino Visconti's magnum opus - The Damned is an utterly engrossing work of art that grabs you from the start and doesn't relinquish its grip until the final frames. The accents from the international cast takes a little getting used to - the soundtrack is in English (some sync sound, some dubbed) and Dirk Bogarde's refined English accent doesn't really suit the part of a German industrialist at first but once you get used to these incongruities the cast seems perfect! The cinematography is beautiful, capturing the decaying elegance perfectly. The score by Maurice Jarre adds to the atmosphere nicely even if it is a little reminiscent of Dr Zhivago. The film's themes are quite challenging and sometimes uncomfortable to watch but it's always compelling and absorbing even at 2 hours 35 minutes.