Well, in class the other day, someone did their biblio on the fashion of facism, and included two movies that address the eroticization of Axis fashion.

The two movies were The Night Porter, and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.

Both movies of which I've seen, and both movies I just don't get. Anyone have any insight into them. Night Porter I've actually done an Official review on http://www.worldofkj.com/Dolcevita-NightPorter.php. I couldn't stand it. Its been recognized as the great profundity and frankly, I really don't think it is.

Isla is in a league by herself. She did a few such films including The Wicked Warden, and Keeper of the Oil Shiek's Harem. She's got a huge cult following, and those followers...I don't know what's going through their minds. I made it about 20 minutes into She Wolf and felt ill. Perhaps I was taking it too seriously? But I was trying to analyze it in terms of cult figure, etc, and was pretty prepared for the material. I understand "over-the-top: serving as a form of parody, tongue and cheek, or even just as a way of distancing and re-reading the situation. I'm aware of literature having to do with sexual experiences during the war, and tried to keep those in mind as well.

But Ilsa was just outright tasteless and I'm almost pissed that it has such a following and wide distribution. I see no way to approach this either as a viewer or as an academic, and I don't think it really fit into this girls biblio because it initself is not critical or its own exoticization of the experience. It looks to me just like a couple morons who thought it would be kinky to do something like this and didn't think much more than that. Not even in analyzing why WWII fashion has been fetishized in pulp and even daily culture today. I give Night Porter at least a little more credit than that. At least I finished Porter.

Ilsa shouldn't be removed from the stacks because I'm not into that, but it should just sit their and collect dust until the series is forgotten. What the hell does anyone see in these movies?

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYWould you even think of watching such utterly revolting garbage???


Oh goodness, I'm not against censorship, but this REALLY comes close.


Absolutely disgusting POS, all of these films. Vile garbage, that's all it is.


And you know what pisses me off even more???? ACTUAL EXPERIMENTS WERE PERFORMED ON VICTIMS!


Real People with Real Feelings and a REAL Capacity for pain were torchured and brutally murdered, castrated, skinned alive, raped, etc. This is NOT a topic to be mocked or exploited.


Stupid morons.


That SOB Pasolini is just as bad. Ever heard of 120 Days of Sodom? Revolting.


:x :x :x :x


I am completely against any form of exploitation cinema that depicts such human suffering. And as for arguments that its depicted for a good reason: THERE IS NO GOOD REASON!

THERE NEVER EVER EVER EVER IS A GOOD REASON TO DEPICT THIS CRAP!


I honestly question the mental state of people who watch these films (repeatedly, not you dolce). There are some who actually ENJOY this utterly despicable crap.


Anyways, sorry for blowing off some steam, these films really piss me off.

Hey Boxie, what does SOB mean? I've noticed you use it before and have gone over every word I can think of and still can't figure it out.

Anyways, I look at them because they do come up in such things as this girl's paper. No one in the class had heard of Ilsa and Night Porter except for me (d'oh filmophile dorky moment in class), and I'm glad I had because I could call her on the fact that I don't consider Ilsa of any valueable academic value.

I know that exploring sex in the war is not rare. She mentioned an author who is apparently quite popular whom I've never heard of who wrote all these sexual coming of age stories in the camps. At the time he wrote them he was beratted but admitted they were auto-biographical in nature and that he was put in when he was a little boy, encountered sexual abuse, but that, also those were his first sexual experiences, and many youths like him had their first experiences there as well. He said it did, in fact, inform his sexual identity even decades later. I try to remember that these discussions exist and should be learned from, which is why I'll try stuff once. But Ilsa is just not that at all

I doubt that the director is going to get up and say he exoticizes nazi fashion the way the author (and all of American pulp fashion and imagery) did. I really don't see an ounce of that in this and think that its just some idiot tapping into a long standing tradition of eroticizing violent sez without understanding the "can of worms" he's opening up. I didn't get too far into Ilsa.

Though Night Porter if you check Rottentomatoes (80%) and IMDB (6.5/10 stars) is actually fairly well received. I watched it a few years ago just because I was interested, and only later found out just how many other people have seen it, and how its considered great cinema. Its not on the level Ilsa is, I just think its almost worse for that. Its been accepted into the mainstream in a way Ilsa wasn't.

Pasolini I have seen enough of to know he is rarely obvious with his subtext, but I have not seen 120 Days. Only Decameron, Gospel According to St. Mathew, Accatone, and The Hawks and the Sparrows. He's very unrefined and I don't know how well he was in control of some of the content of his work. I have heard that 120 days is terrible. I don't even know what it is about though, and assumed it was a critique of the OT story since he was openly gay. What's it about?

SOB = son of a bitch. I don't like to swear, but sometimes I'm forced to do it.


120 Days I read about on imdb (I'd never watch it). It's based on a novel by Marquis de Sade (ya...).

Basic plot: 5 Fascist officers in Northern Italy take a number of people, including eith boys and eight girls, and lock themselves up in a villa. Once there, they tell these prostitutes to tell them a set of stories, and the winner is supposed to be whoever tells the story with the closest connectino between sex and power and violence.


The 5 officers then commit those acts on the villagers they hold captive. Acts and incidents include the cutting of tongues (apparently shown directly), the forced eating of human feces, and sodomization of the boys.

Those are just some of the many acts.

That's what the film is. There is no sympathy for anyone in it.


That's what I was able to get from reading the summaries/reviews, etc. I don't really want to read anymore.

It sounds to me like the film might have just been mishandled because the theme is so heavy Actually sexual conduct in times of war and as a form of empowerment are well known...*ahem Congo, Abu Graib, etc*

There is an interesting book I read about sexual mutilation of dead bodies after battles, and even about sexual initiation into groups and how it all fits into virility an dpower history. Its very interesting, and it sounds like Pasolini's contious inclusion of storytellers that directly equate sexual abuse with power is actually very responsible if he is then going to proceed to have the officers themselves do it. Those stories serve as a direct explanation of sexual vulgarity in wartime. That's only if the stories are any good though.

I have to say that almost everything I've seen from him save one film were not fully recognized due to his own shortcomings. He has these big iseas and then can't quite seem to get them out. I don't know. Maybe I will look at it and tell you what I think, but its not high up on my list, because regardless of intention, if he didn't do a good job of it, than I'm going to get something completely different than he put in, and it probably won't be a though provoking one, which is pretty much why I would watch it.

I hadn't heard that the film's dv quoted were actually snuff films - that's another thing altogether - when it's an actual crime, not just excorcising demons through perverse play acting. (Or do you mean the historical events in WWII? And what do you mean when you say you're not against censorship? This topic must really agitate you - normally your writing is much more clear.)

From my experience, fetishes are all about breaking moral norms - that's the point - the more perverse within that person's frame of reference the better. They are the black humour of sexuality, which like tasteless jokes are a way us humans deal with the unimaginably evil streak running through our species.