The Damned

Bizarre and unsettling, but not nearly as much as I was led to believe. The strong performance from the lead character is stunning and surely engaging; the subject matter is fluid and very interesting as well, and needless to say, Visconti's direction is top tier. The Damned may not be the best work he's done but it's surely worthy of its challenging subject matter and should be seen by anyone who considers themselves an advocate of film as an art form.

Something about this film just drew me in. It's not as depraved as its reputation, though its characters are certainly debased and perform reviling actions; it's just that they're so full of hate and despise each other so strongly that the drama and energy onscreen is hypnotic. Visconti's visuals are understated but serve to greatly enhance the story in an equally indescribable way, using an active camera (seems every shot is a zoom) to emphasize faces and expressions. Unforgettable.

A perverted lavish demon movie

Successfully unpleasant. The Night of the Long Knives sequence may be the best I’ve seen from Visconti. At its best, horrific and haunting. At its worst, gratuitously unpleasant.

Nazis, murder, incest, greed, rape, and just about any other evil you can imagine inhabit this wild film. It's very much a melodrama, but at times it delves a little too far into soap opera-y for my taste. The performances are generally good, especially Helmut Berger, Thulin, and Griem as the unflappable, unsettling. Probably a film I will give another look at some point--even though I wouldn't say I loved it, it's interesting and different. Very different from other Viscontis I have seen.

Slow, yet still absorbing. Without any background, the Night of the Long Knives sequence looks like a gay bathhouse raid with machine guns; the trope of Nazi decadence = transvestism/pedophilia has certainly been milked for all its worth. Kael: "Though some of the actors speak their own English, [it] has all the disadvantages of a dubbed movie-everything sounds stilted and slightly off. [The language] belongs to no period or country and sounds like translated subtitles." Awful M. Jarre score.

Wasn't 100% into this when I saw it but for some reason this story of a merciless, egomaniacal idiot who rises to power because he's useful to fascists, keeps springing back into my mind!

The was interesting at first but falls off easily and becomes more trashy and ridiculous and not the intended good type either. A bit of a wasted cast too. I don't regret watching it as it's an interesting mess and almost impeccably made by Visconti but wouldn't recommend it to anyone I don't know.

#527

My problem with this movie is about the last 30 minutes. During those final moments, the dialogues, situations and performances are quite exaggerated. Actually, the entire movie is built upon an extra dosing of drama, but I think it wasn't misplaced, up until the ending. And, of course, the colors, the cinematography is delightful, following Visconti's trademark of The Leopard, Senso, etc.

Has its pluses and minuses. It does make striking use of color, the acting is not that bad and it eventually builds to a compelling, operatic tale. But it does take some time to get going. The first part is dreadfully confusing. And the film is often quite hysterical, and occasionally absurd. While I had some admiration for what Visconti was doing and how he was going about it, I didn't much want to be watching it. I kept vacillating between confused, impressed, bored, intrigued, and annoyed.

Revulsion is the most immediate response; at the content, presentation, and form exhibited. There's a deliberate analysis to be drawn from this but it doesn't excuse the over-acting and, as it goes on, general banality.

493

A wonderfully vivid portrait of human evil, made in a dizzying visual style. Definitely not a film you will soon forget

Revi esse filme porque esse texto https://www.cartamaior.com.br/?%2FEditoria%2FCinema%2FA-licao-de-como-estimular-o-odio-por-Luchino-Visconti%2F59%2F39717 voltou a pipocar no meu feed do facebook e é mesmo uma das obras-primas do Visconti. DVD Versátil.

One of the most unpleasant movies I've ever seen.

524

Veers between boring and just garishly bad. I find it unbelievable that Visconti, a man with so many masterpieces under his belt, is responsible for this calamity.

A visually rich film that uses an upper class German family as a microcosm of Germany in the 1930's. Berger's performance stands out but all of the actors do a good job of portraying their characters and making the viewer thoroughly disgusted with their personalities. It's a little slow and overindulgent at times, but Visconti's striking camerawork and set design make up for that in spades.

# 553