Rodrigo Amaro Exploring the roots of the Nazi-Fascism rise in Germany of 1930's, Luchino Visconti and his "La Caduta Degli Dei" ("The Damned"), the first of the German trilogy ("Ludwig" and "Death in Venice" completing it) , is an impressive and carefully constructed epic about an aristocrat family's destruction, shattered with perversions, with a repulsive hunger for power in a society that changed its values like someone who changes his clothes.The von Essenbeck family story starts in 1933, during the Reichstag fire which happened on the same day as the birthday of Essenbeck's patriarch Josef (Albrecht Schoenhals), owner of a powerful weapon industry. After some deliberation and after this new happening in the country Josef decides to step away from his duties as president of the company, passing it to one of his relatives, Konstantin (René Koldehoff). From this point on all we're going to see a battle for power that slowly destroys each member of the Essenebck family. Murder, betrayal, fight for a higher status in this new Germany and other things will be decisive to unscrupulous people like Martin (Helmut Berger, great actor), one of the troubled and young members of this aristocratic family, and the one who'll be decisive in the way things move in the country and with his mother (Ingrid Thulin) and her husband Frederick Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), who are also trying to make their way in the family business, helped by Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), who carefully builds the web of deceptions in this game, joining one side at one time, then the other in a more appropriate time, depending of the circumstances.This year, it appeared in my hands a book of the script from this film plus an interview with the creators of it where they justify the film and the things they wanted to evocate with it by dealing with the seeds of Nazism and the way this was spread on a fragile Germany. What I saw in there was amazing, the thoughtful interviews and the greatly written script (drastically reduced in the filmed version). But what I've seen in the completed cinematic form was a little bit confusing, with few unexplained things (the presentation of the characters weren't so good just like the one of the written work, just an example) but a majestous work of art and history. Its grandiosity was beyond anything I've seen in a while, here's a spectacular tragedy of limitless dimensions that even if part of it is not real just looks and sounds a lot real to many of us. It's an accomplished and tragic epic full of blood, perversions, twisted personalities, insanity, greed, lust and other torments of the body and soul.For all I've seen and all the relevant things it had to show and say, I consider "La Caduta Degli Dei" a very good film on the pre WWII subject with outstanding acting by the cast, impressive art direction and impeccable costumes. A story to be seen multiple times to be fully comprehended and absorbed. 9/10

patrick powell Anyone coming to The Damned cold who didn't know that the film was made by Luchino Visconti would write it off as a TV movie which would be lucky to get much exposure on TV. At its best it is bad, and at times it is quite simply awful. And this from a director who has, at times, been lauded as one of the world's best. So what went wrong? Well, I don't know. It is quite in explicable. The acting is bad, the dialogue often truly awful and the direction is flat and uninspired. At times the film is lifeless. On paper it will have looked quite promising: show how a ruthless employee in league with the boss's daughter-in-law schemes and murders his way to the top of German steel company. Set it all in the Thirties as the Nazis are consolidating their grip on power to reflect the nature of the regime. Nothing wrong with that, except that the moral - goodness, weren't the Nazis quite awful - is about as unoriginal as you might get. But something, many things, went wrong in the realisation: the collection of English, German and I don't know from where else actors does not work (and I for one have never bought that Dirk Bogarde is even half as good as everyone else likes to say. The man is often a ham). They seem to be acting in different films. It occurred to me that were the actors all Italian, the direction might have just about worked - no, I'm clutching at straws. The dialogue is often so utterly banal and 'audience informing' that it could have been written by bad student director. I'll give just one very telling example of how ill-conceived it all is, how wrong-headed: yes, the Nazis were thugs as the well-documented Night of the Long Knives murderously demonstrated. But Hitler and the rest of his gang were essentially lower-class mediocrities who gained power through a bizarre set of circumstances. And they had a dog-in-the-manger attitude to German nobility, high finance and industrial grandees. So when the authorities come to arrest Herbert, they would not arrive in a battalion of gun-toting, steel-helmeted, black-uniformed soldiers, banging on the door to be let in - especially so early on in the regime when their grip on power was still untested and shaky. That whole scene can serve to sum up just how bad this film is. This gets one star out of ten only because the system doesn't allow for awarding no stars.

JoeytheBrit 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.

Cristian The movies have used as central topic the second world war, because it had all lot of things that tell, and, as a friend of mine said one time, it can be applied to the worldwide present. "La Caduta degli dei", or the famous English title "The Damned", join this group of movies (Others that belongs to this long list can be "Pink Floyd: The Wall", "Das Boot", "Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma", Roman Polanki's "The Pianist", "The Downfall", "Cabaret", "The Bridge on the river Kwai", "The Longest Day" and of course "Shindler's List"). "La Caduta degli dei" talk about the Von Essenbecks, a family where just one can have all the power. A family that going to fall in the total decadence and selfish. A "damned" family. The factor that produces all this power is a factory of metals. The principal own of this factor is the old Joachim, who begins the indecision of uniting to the Nazi regime. Since here begin a fight of hypocrisy for power until find the total decadence.Since the presentation of that selfish boy in clothes of women (Remembers me a lot of Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" where talk about of the Nazi Germany and it counts with Helmut Griem too) to the depressive wedding, "La Caduta degli dei" is a decadent story of not more than selfishness. Althoug that have some technical errors, it intention is clear and is told in a perfect depressive way. Luchino Visconti's "La Caduta degli dei" is definitely a good movie, with outstanding performances of Ingrid Thulin (As that interested and horrible mother) , Helmut Berger, Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Griem, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini and Charlotte Rampling (My God, is the first that i see her... she is beautiful, i think that Anouk Aimée was the woman that heads my list, but this one win her... what a woman!!!)."La Caduta degli dei" is a perfect movie of decadence and selfishness (I think that i made that thing of repetition, repetition, repetition... but its necessary) with and outstanding direction (I love that notable camera approaches, are magnificent and at the same time, give to the movie that saddest touch) and unforgettable performances. Is an undeniably important movie in the history of movies.*Sorry for the mistakes... well, if there any