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Aimee & Jaguar

1999, Movie, NR, 126 mins

Aimee & Jaguar: Review

AIMEE & JAGUAR
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A bold, remarkable film that's both a wrenching real-life wartime romance and a powerful evocation of Berlin during the Allied bombing, told entirely from a German perspective. It's 1943, and Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader) is playing a dangerous game: Choosing to remain in Nazi Germany even though she's both Jewish and gay, Felice works for the Goebbels-quoting editor-in-chief of a Nazi newspaper (Peter Weck), transcribing anti-Semitic editorials by day and penning Sapphic love poems, which she signs "Jaguar," during her break. By night, Felice and her girlfriends risk their lives smuggling concentration camp transport lists and counterfeit passports to the Jewish underground. As the last of Berlin's Jews are rounded up and the city is pounded to rubble by British and American aircraft, Felice loses all sense of danger and begins courting Lilly Wust (Juliane Kohler), an Aryan hausfrau and mother of four who canoodles with German officers while her husband (Detlev W. Buck) fights on the Eastern front. Lilly resists at first, then throws caution to wind and embarks on a reckless affair with Felice without realizing her new lover is Jewish. It's hard to believe this handsome film is writer-director Max Farberbock's first feature: He and co-writer Rona Munro carefully balance the facts of Lilly Wust's story, based on the best-selling book by Erica Fischer, with conventions of romantic melodrama. The result is a heartbreaker — remember to bring your hankies — but just as effective is Farberbock's re-creation of the Battle of Berlin: The fiery skies, shadowy Allied bombers, mass destruction and charred bodies lend the film the terrifying edge of an apocalyptic nightmare. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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