Berlin Affair

It's simply one of the best darkest movie I've ever seen in my life. Very well told story. And the performance of Mio Takaki (Mitsuko Matsugae) is just exceptional. Perhaps is what Liliana Calvani use to do when she makes any film: to put her particular seal in each of them. And she put a huge one in "The Berlin Affair". Excellent!

The wife of a high Nazi official starts an affair with the daughter of the Japonese ambassador. The daughter made the first move. That escalated until the husband demanded it end. It did not end. The Nazi husband then discovered how great the Japonese woman was and fell for her. Somehow the threesome was exposed in a tabloid. This was 1938. I can't reveal the devastating end. It is not a sleazy film; eroticism is handled well. I would recommend it to anyone interested in how one little person can ruin many lives.

This can not even be considered a pun, right? If you feel so, sorry for the pun. But it might never have been more apt then here. You have the world on the verge of second world war - and some people who just are getting it on ... and on ... and on.

But with so many affairs, you would be excused if you lost the count. Or who is doing it with whom. Now saying all that, do not imagine this to be too titilating/exciting. Actually the main cast isn't really nude in this. There is some nudity, but from others/smaller roles and not during the ... act. No pun intended.

This is a special kind of drama. You will either like what is happening - with confusion and trying to please ... oneself - or you will find it annoying at best. Don't blame Berlin for anything ... I think.

Liliana Cavani is a woman of literature. Here she takes Tanizaki's Japanese classic "The Budhist Cross" and transports it to Berlin in the oppressive 30ies. Nazi paranoia is on the look out, ironically, for deviants within German society. In this case High Society. As heads begin to roll more than one personality has something to hide. A study in juxtaposition of fire and ice, truth and falseness, faith and betrayal, Berlin Affair is not an 'easy' film but yes an intriguing one. All the characters seem to move and react with authentic 'period' ease, formal but never artificial. Gudrun Landgrebe is a revelation. Aloof but sensual she evokes the kind of respect usually reserved for the great 'stars' of Hollywood's heyday. Kevin MacNally reminds us of Dirk Bogarde, Mio Takaki is in no way the stereotype of Asian beauty, making her 'powers' seem all the more credible. Andrea Prodan as the 'blackmailing' Josif Benno creates an intriguing character with only a few scenes. In short, everybody is a 'victim' in this drama, which like a Webster play leaves us with a stage strewn with corpses. Adore the Sets,Costumes and pristine photography. A definite Visconti experience from Italy's dame of discomfort, Liliana Cavani.

I purchased this DVD because of its German star, the beautiful and soft-spoken Gudrun Landgrebe, who portrayed a tender and warm-hearted young woman so convincingly in the German TV series "Heimat". In the German version of this movie, she dubs her own part with near perfection and makes all the right faces all the time, but is condemned to play the silliest society woman one may ever encounter on the proverbial celluloid: falling "lesbianly" (so to speak) for a sour-faced, lying and manipulative Japanese woman, even though she is happily married to a successful diplomat in the German government. After the viewer becomes convinced to have seen the peak of cinematic stupidity, he is in for yet further astonishment when said happily married diplomat too falls for the Japanese and, in this state, becomes even jealous of his wife. Now, this male reviewer may not be able to judge correctly the authenticity of a lesbian infatuation, but he can assert that, as a man's sex object, the Japanese is so low on the totem pole to be below ground. Those fake sexual encounters, during which the participants never shed any of their clothing, do not exactly contribute to the credibility of the story either. Only Gudrun's 1930's Mercedes looks genuine.