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The Berlin Affair Reviews

1985
1 hr 37 mins
Drama
PG

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In 1938 Berlin, Gudrun Landgrebe, wife of Nazi functionary Kevin McNally, begins taking art lessons. She makes the acquaintance of another student, Japanese ambassador's daughter Mio Takaki. Soon afterwards, the two women begin a passionate lesbian affair. This leads to a chain reaction of disaster and tragedy, culminating with the inevitable intervention of the Gestapo. Despite the film's galloping sexual passions, The Berlin Affair is an exercise in aloofness, keeping the characters at arm's length-surprising, considering that the director was Liliana Cavani, auteur of the erotic classic The Night Porter (1974). The film was based on The Buddhist Cross, a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki.

In 1938 Berlin the Nazis are consolidating and expanding their power. Gudrun Landgrebe, the wife of a rising young Nazi diplomat, is taking art classes and is struck by the beauty of another student, Mio Takaki, the daughter of the Japanese ambassador. The two women soon become friends and, before long, lovers. Landgrebe's husband, Kevin McNally, learns of the affair and forbids his wife to see Takaki. Landgrebe doesn't obey her husband though and leaves herself open to blackmail. For a film dealing with illicit passion, this is strangely unaffecting. Nothing indicates the depth of sexual desire that propels the characters. All of the performances are competent, and the production values indicate a much more lavish film, but the film is a vacuum badly in need of a story to fill it.