Often described as a remake of Liliana Cavana’s notorious art house classic The Night Porter, Gestapo’s Last Orgy is actually quite its own beast. Both films do feature a female concentration camp survivor reuniting with her Nazi oppressor years later, but whereas Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling’s S&M antics charted controversial waters, it’s clear that theirs is a consensual, if twisted, relationship. For Commandant Von Starker (Adriano Micantoni, billed here as Mark Loud) and Lise (Daniela Poggi, as Daniela Levy), the quirky relationship is forged in the fires of dominance and defiance. Von Starker seeks to crush the beautiful Lise’s will, but since she has already divorced herself from her emotions, he derives no satisfaction from torturing her. He must make her “love life” again, so that he may achieve the ultimate victory by depriving her of it. He ends up falling for her, while she in turn grows increasingly more powerful, more dangerous.
