A grotesque vaudeville show. It's one act after another, with political labels stuck on the participants so you'll know what you're watching.

Its virtuoso style, demonstrating once again Miss Wertmuller's mastery of filmmaking, is used to tell us a story that's very opaque, despairing, and bottomless.

Wertmuller is certainly in the mainstream of European film-making; her work is often cinematically beautiful and sometimes provocative. I would like to see her reduce the sweep of her canvas to explore her central themes in greater depth.

A masterclass in shifting tone. It manages to mingle humor in with the atrocities without trivializing what the Nazis are doing.