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Customer Reviews of The Damned

That Damned Leopard!
I have enjoyed reading the reviews of The Damned. Some viewers/writers were shocked, some seemed to be amused, and others were disgusted. In my opinion, all these views reflect the writer's circumstances as much, if not more, than the merits or flaws of the actual film. <
>I first saw The Leopard in a big movie theater, in Paris in 1971, in Italian with French subtitles. My French, she is not so good, and my Italian, well, it is nonexistent! But I got the point! As the many reviewers of The Leopard point out, the film is beautiful, sweeping and grand, (a masterpiece!) the story of a nobleman faced with challenges brought on by changing times. And with every new problem, the old cat deftly avoids catastrophe and steers his family into the future. ... and the film is soooo boring!!! Its beautiful, but the story goes nowhere. <
>The Damned is the flip side of The Leopard. Same basic situation, but this time the old man is killed off right at the start, and the family then slides into degradation, perversion, etc. etc. until the most immoral member is left in charge, offering his mother poison as a wedding present. Nice? No. But not at all boring. <
>Perhaps I overstate the case, and maybe conflict and plot are less important in Visconti's films than character, music, sets, dialogue and costumes. I'll let others argue those points. What I do suggest is that neither The Damned or The Leopard should be praised or condemned too much without seeing, comparing and contrasting both of these remarkable films with each other. Only then can Luchino Visconti's films be evaluated as expressions of a cinematic genius and/or a regional chauvinist.

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Freudian and Simplistic but Nonetheless Demanding View of Nazism
This film appeared within a period of time after the end of World War II when attempts to explain Nazism were rampant from the basements of great research Universities to discussion groups at Psychoanalytic Insitutes. This film shows a particular genre of explanation--the Oedipal-Freudian-Erotic in a chilling family drama surrounding the steelworks of von Essenbeck--essential to the success of National Socialism. I would almost have to say that everything but the kitchen sink is included here, at least by allusion, from Rassenschande (sex with Jews), to homoeroticism (suspected of Roehm and the S.A.), to the supposed construction of a flawless society envied by most other countries for its orderliness (also a kind of Freudian psychosexual stage allusion) to the final triumph of the remaining von Essenbeck heir who enters the stage in a quite psychosexually confused state, ending the drama in Oedipal triumph stating emphatically that all others but he had failed to truly understand National Socialism--mysteriously, he has risen from suspected (blackmailed) child molester to the rank of officer in the S.S. in a few short manoevers--including placing the instruments of suicide in the hands of his mother and her husband (his true power rival). <
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>Across the years encompassed by this drama National Socialism rises from 1933 to, one presumes, the threshold of the war (as the military requires von Essenbeck steel for cannon, and the S.S. is still wearing black uniforms. A recurring figure, a mysterious cousin in S.S. Hauptstuermfuehrer uniform (Aschmann) reminds others quoting Hegel that "not even" a flower can stand in the way of the state. <
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>For one not familiar with landmark events of the development of the Third Reich, including the reasons for the fall of the Weimar Republic (its licensiousness, the fear of Communism and Bolshevism), the Night of the Long Knives, the persecution of the Jews and the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, this will be a more difficult film to comprehend, let alone a basic familiarity with Freudian motivational theory. Nonetheless, it is well worth viewing, simply for the excellent acting, international cast and collaboration, and strong pull this film will have for the viewer in asking--is this sufficient? Can there be more? If this prompts further inquiry, then so much the better, for as others comment--it could be happening in the world elsewhere--sadly it has, is, and will again.

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Chilling!
Dark, opressive! At the end of the movie, you think: "how was it possible? can it happen again?" - and you know that, yes, it can and it's maybe happening this very moment, somewhere in the world...