About

Presented here in its original uncut form after years of being banned or censored around the world (including in Australia), The Damned is a psychosexual singularity and still the most controversial entry in Visconti’s storied oeuvre.

Set in Germany in the early 1930s, the film is a portrait of the Essenbecks – a wealthy industrialist family who make the Faustian decision to collaborate with the Nazis during their political ascent. This narrative engages with one of the filmmaker’s repeated thematic preoccupations: how those in power respond to major societal change. While the Prince in The Leopard 1963 may accept the shifting currents of history with graceful melancholy, here change is marked by avarice and iniquity.

The Essenbecks themselves (portrayed by a first-rate cast of international stars, including Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Ingrid Thulin, and Helmut Berger as the sexually depraved heir Martin) are largely grotesqueries, whose moral destitution is reflected in Visconti’s flamboyantly lurid mise-en-scène.

Marking the start of Visconti’s ‘German Trilogy’ – followed by Death in Venice 1971 and Ludwig 1973 – this ruthless cinematic examination of the ties between decadence and fascism was cited by RW Fassbinder as one of his favourite films and its influence clearly casts a long shadow over his oeuvre.

Ages 18+