Criterion Collection

The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazisms total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitlers ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the conniving matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the cruelly deviant heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning Marlene Dietrich like drag in his breakthrough role) descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and all-consuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another. The heightened performances and Viscontis luridly expressionistic use of Technicolor conjure a garish world of decaying opulence in which one familys downfall comes to stand for the moral rot of a nation.

Från IMDB:
The dramatic collapse of a wealthy, industrialist/Junker family during the reign of the Third Reich.

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