InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Keira Brennan The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

moonspinner55 A hotel clerk in 1957 Vienna recognizes one of his guests as the once-frail and imprisoned woman from the Nazi death camps of World War II when he was an SS officer and she was his half-scared/half-curious sex slave. She recognizes him as well and, despite now being the glamorous wife of an opera conductor, finds herself still drawn to this man. She spies on his private meeting with Nazi sympathizers, who fret about potential "witnesses" bringing their crimes to trial, but the clerk declares his love for the woman and chains her up (willingly) in his apartment. Director Liliana Cavani, who also co-wrote the screenplay, managed to incite a mild uproar from the critics by using a Nazi concentration camp as a backdrop for this kinky relationship, yet the irony of emaciated prisoners of war watching passively while the officer flirts with his pretty, wide-eyed captive is intriguing (at first). But Cavani isn't interested in making a death camp movie; her aim is to be erotic and daring, and the rest is just window-dressing. Once the woman moves into the clerk's room, their neurotic union begins to seem like a watered-down variation of the relationship from "Last Tango in Paris" (in that one, the couple turned on with butter; here, it's raspberry jam). Cavani finally junks the irony and settles instead for melodrama--shot in ghostly color--leading to a woebegone conclusion. Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling don't embarrass themselves, though Bogarde (whose character appears to be bisexual, though this is never expanded upon) has a few moments in the present-day section wherein he looks totally lost as an actor. Also, a lengthy sequence of a male ballet dancer performing in a jock-strap for Nazi soldiers appears to be a flashback to the camps, but the dancer is revealed to be a party sympathizer, and so the scene (which is the only one that has an erotic thrust) is merely padding. *1/2 from ****

christopher-underwood One of those very rare films that is almost impossible to recommend to anyone both because of its intensity and the fact that it is not possible to gauge for certain how another will respond. The most disgusting levels of degradation endured in wartime can become normalised and even integrated into the very being of the participants. There may be some element of the Stockholm syndrome going on here but basically the premise is that the scarred and abused can not only become, as we know abusers themselves but in awe of that abuse. The term is perhaps misleading because it is human nature to survive, whatever the odds and if learning to accept and even enjoy that which is inflicted upon us by others is surely survival of the highest order. However despicable it may appear. Anyway, apart from the film needing some shortening in the last section, it is a perfect tale of a nazi commandant and inmate meeting up years later, remembering their time together in flashbacks and then inevitably, actually re-enacting it and realising that their bond is so profound it might as well be called love. Bogarde and Rampling give the performances of their lives and are indeed worryingly convincing as sadist and masochist.

clockworkdevotchka I am your average film lover who eagerly seeks out the most transgressive films, and devours the Criterion Collection. I must say though that I put off watching this for a long time because the subject matter and idea of a film that romanticizes Nazism just seemed one step too far, especially as a Jewish person. However, after seeing it come up again and again, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.Yes, this film is brutal and not for the faint at heart. I have a natural interest in transgressive sexuality and consider myself somewhere on that spectrum as well so maybe my opinion is biased, but this film was not at all what I expected. I do not see it to be a "Nazisploitation" film, as it has been labeled, it does not romanticize Nazism. It is a deep psychological profile on bdsm and the dynamics of an abusive D/s relationship.The crazy thing is the main characters really do come to love each other in their own way, albeit in a destructive, violent way not unlike Heathcliffe and Cathy from Wuthering Heights. It is doomed but boy, when they're together its like being caught in the middle of an erotic storm. Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde are maybe the best on screen couple I've seen in terms of sexual chemistry. The film really builds up the tension and puts you right in the face of their emotional turmoil. It is effective because outside of their affair, the rest of the world is tight laced, gloomy, and overall feeling the effects of post war depression. It was geniusly done how delicate the whole game between the two is, and the smallest sensory details add a layer of ingenuity and sexuality that is beyond belief. Dirk Bogarde's performance is brilliant, his anger and sensuality, and everything in between completely raw, like a wild animal that constantly has to play at being human. Charlotte Rampling also had this totally unhinged quality and the two really work off each other's energy to bring together something genuine and not often captured on film.The Night Porter rocked my world and deeply moved me. It was all at once beautiful, erotic, heartbreaking, romantic, disturbing, and terrible. It is a masterpiece.

currierej This movies has been reviewed in depth (reading them inspired me to write this), I just wanted to add a small comment.When most people talk about the convoluted and twisted relationship of the main characters they seem to miss one point, their current positions.Max has gone from a man of great power, life and death by the wave of his hand, illustrated by his present to her at the dance. And she was a "dead" person, sent to a camp to die, kept alive by his simplest wish, the slightest misstep and she is dead.Now, years later he is a basic servant, reduced to hiding by night and waiting on other people. She has become rich and powerful, people wait on her.Other people mentioned the guilt felt by Holocaust survivors, and here she is knowing that not only did she survive, but she survived by not only collaborating with the enemy, but (possibly) enjoying herself while doing it. Imagine the guilt in that situation. Her return to his control is less of a S/M response and more of a guilt reflex, she cheated death in the arms of the enemy and guilt drives her back to suffer for her sins. He has a chance to return to his former glory, he regains control over her and by opposing his fellow Nazi's, he once again has control over not only her life, but his own.They return to their former roles out of guilt, the love and the sex are by-products, a way of reinforcing the return to their former roles.The Stockholm syndrome might have influenced her actions at the camp and therefore would have added to her guilt, but I think her reaction to meeting him again is driven more by the guilt of her past than a desire to relive it.They are driven by the guilt of their past actions, he deserved to die for what he did, she did not deserve to live while so many others died.By the way...I'm probably totally wrong in my assessment.Also by the way, I'm not a person obsessed by guilt, I just feel in reference to this movie it is an important addition to the plot.All that said, I liked the movie, I found it engrossing and was drawn into the story, others have mentioned how great the cinematography was, but I found that I was too interested in the story to notice (a sign of great cinematography).A movie that to really appreciate you must look past the story and into the dark soul of life.