The Night Porter is a doomsday vision of sex. The picture says that human sexuality is loathsome and that every once in a while the beast makes itself heard; its central mechanism is to use war guilt to account for sex guilt.

Perhaps there is something in its very crassness, horror and tastelessness that does at least jolt us towards an acknowledgment of pure evil.

At its best, the film layers Lucia's and Maximilian's flashbacks in such a way that that the lines between memory, fantasy, and nightmare get blurred.

Disturbingly tedious and unfortunately pretentious.