------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The Damned 

(La caduta degli dei)
1969

dir. Luchino Visconti

We watch the unravelling of family politics within a very powerful, industrialist family in inter-war Germany. The old fatherly figure is found dead in his room and relatives fight tactfully and to the end with each other. And all this in an environment of political uncertainty, extremism and ideological polarisation. 

The film lasts long, however the tweests of the plot are so many and of a kind that keep you engaged to the end. The camera makes many zooms to the protagonists, and the visual style is vivid, reminding of its contemporary spaghetti western films. The movie makes evident the decadence, complacency and fear of the times, all these things that gave rise to nazism.