Page 37 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Likewise in L'Ultima orgia, where Commandant Von Starker meets up with Lise years after the war
for a rendezvous on the site of the camp where Lise was imprisoned and sexually tortured by Von
Starker during the war. But the comparisons end at that sutface level. The same theme of power and sexual
control may be seen in both films, and throughout Nazi sexploitation cinema: how that theme
is presented, however, greatly differs.
Where the focus of Il portiere di notte is in Vienna in 1957, wherein flashbacks tie the present to
the past, the opposite underlines L'Ultima orgia as the present tense storyline serves as a structuring
device for sequences of sexual torture and rape. In Cavani's film the flashbacks are presented
impressionistically, not much mote than flashes of memory, and only one flashback sequence is
developed in any kind of detail or length - the famous bar-room song, where Lucia is presented
wearing nothing but a pair of men's trousers with braces and an SS hat, singing a German torch
song a la Marlene Dietrich. But diegetically, Max is telling this story to a friend and embellishes it
into a Salome-parable. The other flashbacks are not so much 'told' by characters as evidence of their
memories. The reverse is the case in L'Ultima orgia where, after a lengthy set up, the present-day
reunion between Von Starker and Lise is impressionistically presented in between extended sequences
of rape and sexual torture.
Significantly how the flashbacks ate photographed also differs: in L'Ultima orgia there is no
subjectivity in the film's presentation. The spectator is positioned more or less objectively to the
horrendous events on screen. The horrors are presented as if on some kind of Grand Guignol stage.
However, Cavani demonstrates her intentions with the sexual degradation in the first few minutes of Il
portiere di notte: the first flashback shown is Max's and we are positioned alongside him photographing
the incoming prisoners awaiting registration and focusing on Lucia. The second flashback, however,
is Lucia's, as we are now seeing the same moment but from the alternative perspective - among the
prisoners, being blinded by the bright light of the movie camera. A n d whereas in Max's flashback
we focus specifically on Lucia, in Lucia's 'reverse-flashback' Max is indistinct, eclipsed by the
arc light of the camera. By setting up this dual perspective on the sexual exploitation within the
concentration camps, Cavani is able to present flashbacks featuring rape, bondage and medical and
sexual experimentation (see below) without appearing as exploitative as Canevari does in L'Ultima
orgia, when he presents similar images (in terms of basic content) but without the subjectivity which
problematise the notions of memory which are one of the central themes in Cavani's film.
The films' conclusions also underlies the differences between exploitation and 'higher-brow'
cinema: in L'Ultima orgia Lise murders Von Statker, after having sex with him among the ruins of the
concentration camp, implying that her contacting him after so many years was all a vengeful (and fully
justified) ruse. In Il portiere di notte Max and Lucia escape from an underground cadre of former Nazi
officials, whose membership had included Max himself. The cadre wanted Max to kill Lucia as she
was the only survivor who could identify his war crimes, but rather than murdering her, they barricade
themselves in his flat and hope the cadre will give up and go after other targets. They do not give up,
Max and Lucia are shot as they attempt to escape on foot, and the final image of the film is a long-shot
of the bridge where the two small figures of Max and Lucia lie dying where they stood. When phrased
like that, Il portiere di notte sounds almost as exploitive as any action film, but it is the complexity of
Max and Lucia's relationship that is the focus of the film. Rather than leaving ambiguous, as Cavani

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