From my favorite movies..

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"The Damned" is pretty much what I expected from a Luchino Visconti epic from the 1960s...it's very long, very slow and very mannered. However, unlike some of his other tediously long films ("The Leopard" and "Death in Venice", it is more watchable...possibly because it's so perverse.The film is about a rich industrialist family in Nazi Germany during the early years (1933 or so onward towards WWII). At the beginning, they seem relatively normal though over the course of the film, these conniving and avaricious folks sell their souls to the Nazi regime in order to maintain power and financial success. In the process, some get wrapped up in the SA (and are eventually destroyed), rape, incest (multiple times), cross-dressing and more...until by the end of the film most of them are dead and the remaining family member is a soul-less ghoul of a man.The story is a decent overview of the German industrialists in general. They were an evil lot who profited tremendously from the build up to the war. Plus, unlike most WWII films, you really see nothing of the country except life for this family. So, the persecution of Jews, Hitler's seizing power and much more are only mentioned in the film as opposed to being directly dealt with in the story. This was NOT a bad thing and makes the film very unique. What also is unique is how incredibly perverse everyone is. There is a lot of nudity...some of which is quite incestuous and kinky. So, it's clearly NOT a film to show the kids or your mother or Reverend Jenkins!Another important thing I must mention is the slowness of the film. It is NOT a movie the average person would enjoy and that is a trademark of many of Visconti's later films. This isn't so much a criticism but an observation. I much prefer his earlier work (such as "Rocco and His Brothers") but many seem to like his slow epics. To each his own....but like his other films, "The Damned" might have been better with a bit of editing and tightening up of the story.

Luchino Visconti's film, "The Damned," is perhaps disturbing and brilliant all at once. Visconti, the director, set to make a film about the German Nazis and a fictional family, the Von Essenbechs, who are wealthy and prominent. There are some very disturbing moments in the film especially with Martin's character, At first, I thought he was a closet homosexual but he really is pedophile and his crime against his mother is unforgivable much less unforgettable. I won't spoil that scene for you but be warned, it's disturbing. Martin comes across as a deeply troubled man and he is in the role. Ingrid Thulin and Charlotte Rampling play mothers and wives in this Shakespearean style tragedy reminiscent of Macbeth and Hamlet. Thulin and Rampling are both brilliant in their roles. Sir Dirk Bogarde is believable as a German Frederick. The family's weaknesses are preyed upon by an outsider who sets them up to self-destruction. We know what happens to Germany after the film ends and that is the horror of what happen to Europe as well. Seeing Martin transform into a powerful Nazi from the beginning is unpredictable without manipulation. The violence and sexual debauchery is also unforgettable as well.

**SPOILERS** With the National Socialist, or Nazi, party taking over Germany the head of the powerful Essenbeck Iron and Steel Works Baron Joachim Essenbeck, Albrecht Schoenhais, is forced to throw his lot in with the Hitler regime which is against his better judgment. Joachim a member of the old Prussian Aristocrats feels that Hitler and his fellow Nazis are nothing but a bunch of low class peasants stock whom he has,by always exploiting them in his factories, nothing but scorn and contempt for.As thing turn out Baron Joachim is murdered in his sleep with his #1 man in running his steel industry Herbert Thallman, Omberto Orsini, framed for for the crime. This sparks a power struggle between Baron Joachim's nephew Konstantin, Reinhard Kolidehoff, and the power crazed vice president of Essenbeck Iron & Steel Works Fredrick Bruckmann, Dirk Bogarde. While all this is going on Baron Joachim's somewhat strange grandson Martin, Helmut Berger, with the help of distant Essenbeck relative, and now Nazi SS officer, Aschenbach-Helmut Griem-makes a power move on both Konstantin and Fredrick to take over the family business.It's really Ascenbach who's the brains behind the hostile takeover of the Essenbeck Industries by him using both Martin and Fredrick to do all his dirty work. Konstantin who got involved with the Nazi SA, because of the good times they were always having, ended up at getting killed during the infamous Night of the Long Knives-June 30-July 1 1934-together with some 100 top SA men as well as their leader Ernst Rohm. Getting caught with their guard as well as pants down the SA boys ended up getting massacred by the Nazi SS who, on Hitlers orders, did them in because they were a thorn in the butt as well as bitter rivals of the German Army and its General Staff. It was the German Army that Hitler needed to gain complete control, at the time he was only the German Chancellor not Fuhrer, of the country.Fredrick who took part, as an Nazi SS officer, in the slaughter of SA men, that included Konstantin, himself ended up on the short end of the stick with both Martin and Aschenbeck setting him up for the kill, by having him stripped of all rank and power, later in the movie. We see in the film La Caduta Degli Die-or "The Damned" in English-just how far people will go to both get and stay in power both in politics and industry. Even though Martin was nothing close to a die in the wool Nazi he used the hated Nazis whom he, like the rest of his Aristocrat family, had nothing but contempt for his own greedy and selfish gains. In that the vast majority of the members of the Nazi Party were made up of-unlike Martin and those that he associated with-people of the lowest social and educated classes. Still it was the Nazis who, by wiping out all those who stood in his way, that Martin gave his unbinding and unconditional loyalty to. A loyalty that in the end lead to the total destruction of his country and even worse the destruction of the Essenbeck Iron & Steel Works which Martin worked, by blackmail murder and even incest, so hard to gain control of..

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