The Berlin Affair (1985)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Who needs subtitles. Just watch it in raw German. Best exemplifies Berlin as a place for elitist bi sexuals and Weimar bohemian types that circulated in the 1920's - 1930's. We are spared spartan Liebensraum volker angry butch women with their Teutonic hairy underarms, since the director skilfully selected only what men like to see: beautiful feminine women getting it on with each other. Of of course, there is a human element to all this, with the Fascist's looming in the background and all that. Too bad the story line could not wane a few more years of script, say, until the Russians invaded the city. Or, perhaps, they could have escaped to Nagasaki in a German U boat with the Japanese Ambassador. (Material for a sequel?) I got such a kick out of this film I would rate it five stars (like Eisenhower's rank) and keep it in my personal collection along with Peter Lorre's "M" and Montgomery Clift's, "The Big Lift".

I purchased this DVD because of its German star, the beautiful and soft-spoken Gudrun Landgrebe, who portrayed a tender and warm-hearted young woman so convincingly in the German TV series "Heimat". In the German version of this movie, she dubs her own part with near perfection and makes all the right faces all the time, but is condemned to play the silliest society woman one may ever encounter on the proverbial celluloid: falling "lesbianly" (so to speak) for a sour-faced, lying and manipulative Japanese woman, even though she is happily married to a successful diplomat in the German government. After the viewer becomes convinced to have seen the peak of cinematic stupidity, he is in for yet further astonishment when said happily married diplomat too falls for the Japanese and, in this state, becomes even jealous of his wife. Now, this male reviewer may not be able to judge correctly the authenticity of a lesbian infatuation, but he can assert that, as a man's sex object, the Japanese is so low on the totem pole to be below ground. Those fake sexual encounters, during which the participants never shed any of their clothing, do not exactly contribute to the credibility of the story either. Only Gudrun's 1930's Mercedes looks genuine.

This may not be as good as "The Night Porter", but it's a great film, and a pure Cavani: twisted plot, psychological dramas, attractions with no limits, and the characters trying to balance their lives between the beautiful and the ugly, the duties and the crimes... Once again the plot is complex and interesting; every twist of it kept me guessing - 'till the very end.The actors are not as famous as in some of her other films, but play their roles quite well and are naturally belivable.A film noir that may not be for everyone, but is a must for anyone who liked other works by Cavani.

It has long been fashionable in critical circles to bash the films of Liliana Cavani. Her films tend to show sleazy low life characters---------even when they live in palatial mansions. Her controversial NIGHT PORTER was unjustly accused of being deplorable, and insult to the intelligence of the average moviegoer, an offense to Jews and women, and generally condemned by everyone of cinematic importance. For me, she is the modern purveyor of film noir at it's darkest.THE BERLIN AFFAIR tells the story of Mitsuko, daughter of the Japanese ambassador to Germany during the Nazi era. She is publicly quiet and demure, but in private, flamboyantly bisexual and seduces the wife of a high Nazi official-------and eventually the husband himself. This leads to a rather unusual ménage a trois with each member of the triangle becoming more and more jealous of the others. Eventually, this self-destructive relationship becomes harder and harder to resist in spite of the personal dangers to the individuals and their respective families and political causes.It would be easy to dismiss this film as another sleazy sex opera from Cavani. But a great deal is going on in this film---------politically, sexually, socially, racially and artistically. There is a definite message for those willing to see it-------and it would be more fun for each viewer to find it for himself. Ignore Leonard Maltin's opinion and decide for yourself.