A couple of days ago I had dinner with a French lady. Before the appetizer arrived she handed me a DVD with the movie “The Night Porter” by Liliana Cavani.
Despite its controversy I’d never heard of this movie.
Last night I started watching “The Night Porter” and I must say that Liliana Cavani takes the esthetics of fascism seriously.
Based on the first 40 minutes of the movie I would say that she raises a not completely unimportant question: how sexy is fascism? The French lady alerted me to a critical essay by Susan Sontag on “The Night Porter”. (You can read Susan Sontag’s essay here.)
Susan Sontag writes: “Sadomasochism is to sex what war is to civil life: the magnificent experience.”

(See also here.)