The Night Porter

The most controversial film of our time! Liliana Cavani's film "THE NIGHT PORTER" has been described as 'powerful', 'haunting', 'brilliant'. The place is Vienna; the year, 1957. Max (DIRK BOGARDE), a former SS officer, is now employed as an anonymous night porter in a de-luxe hotel. Though safe from immediate discovery, Max still has deep feelings of guilt. His past threatens to catch up with him when Lucia Atherton (CHARLOTTE RAMPLING), and her American orchestral conductor husband, check into the hotel. Lucia was Max's teenaged mistress in the concentration camp where Max had posed as a doctor and they shared a sado-masochistic relationship. With her husband gone to Frankfurt on a conducting tour, Lucia succumbs to Max anew. She moves into Max's apartment on the outskirts of the city, but the couple are closely watched by Max's former Nazi companions who hold vital evidence of his past war crimes. Max resigns from his hotel job in order not to leave Lucia alone and unprotected. The ex-SS comrades lay siege to his flat, cutting off all access to food, gas, water and electricity. Max puts on his SS uniform for the last time and dresses Lucia in a young girl's party frock as they attempt to escape. In the darkened streets of post-war Vienna, their fate together seems inevitable...