Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" looks at the role industrial capitalism had on the madness infecting 1930's Germany. One of the director's best films, it revolves around the Essenbecks, an aristocratic family whose massive wealth and high status depend on a steel works factory. The family head, Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, detests the National Socialists, but nevertheless allies his company with them. His son is already a Nazi member and another Essenbeck woman already has a Nazi lover, so why not side with them? After all, with the German Revolution crushed, this seems to be the way the winds of Germany are blowing.As a communist sympathiser this of course repulses the Baron (the Nazis set about eradicating all communists, Marxists, worker movements and, contrary to their name, weren't remotely socialist), but he must act to protect his wealth, and so reluctantly aligns his company's future to the fortunes of the Nazis, his factories reordered such that they do whatever is necessary to assist the German war machine. As the film progresses, however, the Baron's steel works will be slowly appropriated by the Nazis from within, both the Baron and his son will die and all remaining Essenbecks will be systematically replaced by Nazi figureheads.Visconti was himself a communist and aristocrat (Renoir and Pasolini, whom Visconti admired, were also communists), and so his film is primarily concerned with examining the relationships between Naziism and capitalism, and aligning the excesses of both. This project sometimes tips into sensationalism; Visconti has the Baron's son rape his cousin and then his mother, and the film quite shamelessly dips into homosexuality, drug use, incest and paedophilia.But such morbid topics were common in Italian cinema at the time ("Seven Beauties", "The Conformist" etc), most notably by the great provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini maintained that consumer capitalism was worse than fascism because fascism's oppressions operated openly, its very "visibility" offering something to struggle against. But capitalism, Pasolini believed, was far more insidious. It was invisible, able to disavow its failings, and created a society in which citizens were willing participants in their own consented exploitation.So Pasolini's solution was simply to destroy the traditional family unit. Throw everything vile and debased at it. Why? Because the backbone of capitalism was, at the time, deemed to be traditional family, which itself rested on patriarchal values. Destroy the family, liberate it from itself, from its restrictions, and you win. Of course history has shown such thinking to be severely wrong. Today capitalism both sells conservatism and "empowers" the family to lovingly destroy itself, willingly.But many Italian films of the late 1960s and early 70s which dealt with fascism followed a similar trend, mostly due to the writings of Wilhelm Reich in his book, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism". These films, like Reich, link various sexual and physical dysfunctions to the very anxieties of fascism. Think Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist", in which fascism is nurtured through the anchoring of sexual inhibition in the authoritarian miniature state of the family. The belief was that fascist anxiety stems from these suppressions, which ultimately results in a form of paralysis in which the subject is adjusted to all authoritarian orders and so willingly submits in spite of his degradation.But Visconti takes a slightly different approach. Nazis, especially during this era, were typically portrayed as being either the "id unchained" or perpetually repressed. Most of "The Damned" itself conforms to these trends. Here, when the "masculine ideal" of Nazi Germany comes under threat (by feminism, the literary and artistic Avant-Garde, socialism and sexual deviancy etc), we see it resorting to the fascist repression made possible by violent father figures (Hitler etc), all of whom repress sexual excess and transfer it instead to a kind of violent machismo.Visconti, however, was also influenced by Lukacs, a Marxist theorist who argued against modernism. And so Visconti also portrays the aristocracy and bourgeoisie (ie Old Germany) in various states of decline as they are infected and dominated by the future (Nazism). Visconti's Nazis - the new order - are themselves emblematic of the transmutation of every (sexual) impulse into predation (figured most obviously in the paedophilia of the Baron's son and the raping of his own mother), the drive for power, and finally the death wish (in the Freduain sense; desire cloaks death).This is made most clearest during a scene in which SS troops raid what is essentially a Socialist Alliance "homosexual sex party" and execute everyone present. Here, Nazism's dream of a classless state is revealed to be false. The sexual self (ie, the totally liberated moment or movement) is always contained and then destroyed by the demands of power (be it feudal, capitalist, monarchist etc), an act which itself serves as a metaphor for Hitler's annihilation of certain factions to please others, be they the SS, the military or the Prussian ruling class. So unlike Bertolucci and Passolini, it's not only a case of fascism spiralling out of the authoritarian family, but of fascism legitimising a kind of private deviancy (always aligned with predatory power) inside the family whilst publicly crushing all similar displays. In this way Visconti sets up a weird tension, the SS son molesting children and raping his mother behind closed doors whilst SS gangs brazenly kill SA officials, Jews and homosexuals in public.Beyond this you have the usual pros and cons of Visconti, "The Damned" too reliant on dialogue, boardroom discussions and the format of the nineteenth century novel. Like most of Visconti's films it observes as powerful "families" jostle for position, the "old order" trying to guarantee its future but failing to be absorbed into the "new consensus". Unlike these films, its tone is haunting and nightmarish.8.5/10 - See "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis".

Luchino Visconti's The Damned is a difficult film to qualify. The Italian title (roughly translated as The Fall of the Gods) makes one think of Wagner's opera. The story, a family drama full of back-stabbing and reciprocal hatred, evokes the great Greek tragedies. And the sensationalist marriage of Nazism and every imaginable form of human perversion earns it a spot in the infamous Nazisploitation genre, although of a more refined brand than Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.The film follows the decline and fall of the Essenbecks, a rich family whose steelworks has strategic importance to the Third Reich. The film opens like The Godfather, during a family celebration, the birthday of old Baron Joachim, the patriarch. Unlike in Coppola's film, however, here there are no strong ties, only recriminations and intrigues.The Baron is old and several factions want to take control of the steelworks: Frederick (Dirk Bogarde) is backed by SS officer Aschenbach (Helmut Griem); Konstantin (Reinhard Kolldehoff), an SA officer, wants the factory to empower the position of the SA in the Third Reich; and Herbert (Umberto Orsini), the current vice-president, wants to keep the factory out of Nazi hands.There's also Martin (Helmut Berger), the actual heir, a decadent, hedonist pervert who, in an amazing drag performance, during the festivities re-enacts Marlene Dietrich's cabaret scenes from The Blue Angel. Martin is the wild card in this power struggle; he cares nothing about business so long as he can continue to live his wild life of dissipation in a secret apartment with his lover (Florinda Bolkan in a sexy short role). However controls him controls the steelworks.Two events conspire against Herbert, one of the few voices to rise against the coming barbarities. First the Reichstag building burns down that same night, symbolically announcing the end of democracy in Germany and prompting the Baron to place the steelworks in the hands of Konstantin, a man closer to the powers that be, for the good of the factory. And secondly, the murder of the Baron, never shown on screen but probably committed by Frederick himself and blamed on Herbert, who quickly flees the country. Frederick, eager to get to the top, had been warned all night by Aschenbach that something was going to happen and that he must prove his devotion. With the Baron dead, Martin, involved with his mother (Ingrid Thulin) in an overtly incestuous relationship, hands over the power to her lover, Frederick.It may seem like I'm describing a lot, but this amounts to the first half hour. If this long film were a novel, it could only be a 19th century naturalist novel, full of characters and byzantine plots that confuse the inattentive reader. The first minutes begin with several parallel conversations, so close attention is required.Once Frederick is in power the real power struggle with Konstantin begins. The film doesn't just show a family conflict but a political conflict within the Third Reich, between the SS and the SA, the Nazi Party's paramilitary faction. If Konstantin's power rose, the Essenbeck steelworks would allow them to arm themselves and become too independent. This conflict historically ends with the Night of the Long Knives, a purge that led to the execution of many SA officers, and which Visconti recreates in an epic, bloody sequence that resonates through The Godfather's final massacre.Although this film may seem like a convoluted mess at times, my interest never wavered. The characters are so insidious and their evil so seductive, not to mention that the actors playing them are uniformly good, that this film is a delight for those who like to visit once in a while the darkest side of men. Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger and Ingrid Thulin shine in every opportunity. Berger and Griem deserve special credit. Griem's amoral Aschenbach, the embodiment of the new society of supermen to whom everything is permissible, steals every scene he's in with the serenity and good humour that accompanies his little speeches about Nazi philosophy. At one point Martin is arrested because a little Jewish girl he molested hanged herself. Aschenbach, using a fatherly tone, assuages Martin's fears by explaining that since she was Jewish it isn't even a crime anymore. Once in a while a film reminds us why Nazis will always be cinema's greatest villains.Although I can't say that this ensemble film has a main character, Martin is the one who changes the most, from a weak, effeminate crybaby to the family's ruthless patriarch, similar to Michael Corleone, to pursue the comparison with Coppola's film. But whereas Michael is a self-made man who takes power into his own hands through cunningness, Martin remains a slave when Aschenbach shifts his alliance to him and abandons the social-climber Frederick. Martin is an actor's dream role, a character who himself plays a role, that of a powerful man. Or at least tries to play it. Berger's triumph is that he always portrays Martin as self-doubting tyrant unsure of his own power. His façade is full of cracks. And like a naughty child who's got his back covered by a doting father, his revenge is as petty as it is exaggerated.The Damned may seem, to those who keep their imagination in bondage, a dated film. Audiences nowadays demand Nazis with human faces, like in The Pianist and Downfall. Visconti's Nazis belong to their age. But like Colonel Hans Landa, they're infinitely more entertaining. All in all, the film's themes of moral decline and complicity during the Third Reich come through in a clear if oversimplified manner. But the Essenbeck, so diverse in their perversions – incest, murder, pedophilia – and so absolute in their hatred, are so fascinating they'll never lose an iota of their sensationalist charm.

Visconti's bizarre examination of a powerful and wealthy family whose downfall both parallels the rise and foreshadows the fall of the Third Reich is never less than entertaining, it has to be said. Certainly not to the tastes of all, it seems to revel in the decadence and debauchery it portrays in much the same way a tabloid paper feels it has to publish dozens of photographs of the pornography it pretends to condemn. Look how depraved these incestuous cross-dressing Nazis were; apart from one pious voice the whole nation, it seems, is condemned with one broad stroke and we are given no contrast against which to compare such depravity.The characters of the Von Essenbach family are each representative of a facet of 30s German character, all joined in a desire for power or the need to be protected beneath its wing, prone to making strident and unyielding demands and dismissing the rights of those who stand in their way. This leaves us with a morally repugnant lot, none of whom we can empathise with, and also tempts the cast to overact at times. Ingrid Thulin is particularly guilty, and even the usually laconic Dirk Bogarde becomes overwrought at times.For all these faults, the film is shamelessly entertaining and fascinating to watch. It plays like a Shakespearian tragedy at times, and you feel compelled to see it through to the end just to find out the fate of each character.

Visconti's epic allegory of a wealthy murdered German patriarch, his family and their uneasy relationship with the Third Reich is wonderfully well-intentioned, magnificently overblown and almost a masterpiece. Where Kurasawa adapts Shakespearean themes and transposes their themes as far-reaching and relevant to different worlds, Visconti takes elements of Macbeth and Hamlet bludgeoning them into his tale of a dynasty seemingly aware of drastically uncertain times and powerless to do anything but react in outlandishly vicious and self-protective defence. The storyline embracing full-blown homosexual orgy, incest, transvestism, and paedophelia as portrayal of Nazi depravity is never subtle but always magnetic. A piece so verbose is of course massively flawed. The dialogue, although delivered in English is at times illegible and the discrepancy between actors enjoying themselves (a resurgent Ingrid Thulin, an ecstatically hammy Dietrich-impersonating Helmut Berger) and actors sweating and morose in their discomfort (a visibly hard-working Dirk Bogarte) is noticeable. Visconti's zoom lenght shots to portray (very obvious) evil have long been rendered obsolete by television and simply add to the general sense of chaos.In truth however it remarkably adds to the joyous uncertainty of events and as the movie sinks almost overwhelmed to its conclusion, it ultimately survives for its hypnotic splendour.