The Damned

C

The ever-provocative Park Avenue Armory is currently hosting a limited run of avant-garde director Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of the masterful 1969 Visconti screenplay, direct from the Comédie Française. If I may quote myself, in my review of Dead Poets Society two seasons ago, I said: “While there have been many films that were turned into successful musicals, adapting a movie for the stage without musicalizing it doesn’t seem to add any value.” Nothing I saw tonight changed my opinion. What van Hove has done here is particularly perplexing — the production makes such extensive use of video on a large screen that it comes across as neither fish nor fowl. I will confess that, with the exception of View from the Bridge, I have found van Hove’s work overblown, sensationalistic, indulgent and overpraised. As expected, there was gratuitous nudity, violence, depravity and effects included for their shock value. What I did not expect was the lugubrious pace and the confused storytelling. We observe the corrosive effect of the rise of Nazism on a Krupp-like family. With few exceptions, they are an unlikable bunch, driven by ambition and the desire for revenge. The patriarch Joachim (Didier Sandre) disdains the Nazis for their low class origins. His brutish second son Konstantin (Denis Podalydès) is an avid Nazi with a sensitive son, Gunther (Clément Hervieu-Léger). Sophie (Elsa Lepoivre), the widow of the first son, who was killed in the Great War, is a cold manipulator. She has a longtime lover Friedrich (Guillaume Gallienne) whom she has not married because he is not a nobleman. Her son Martin (Christophe Montenez) is gender fluid with a special interest in little girls. He also has mother issues, to put it mildly. Wolf von Aschenbach (Eric Génovèse) is a Nazi cousin who knows how to pit his relatives against each other. The only sympathetic adult characters are Joachim’s daughter Elisabeth (Adeline d’Hermy) and her principled husband Herbert (Loïc Corbery). The set design by Jan Versweyveld features a large orange platform with dressing tables on one side and six ominous coffins on the other. Their role in the play is a shocker. One of the highlights is the Night of the Long Knives. Van Hove’s version makes clever use of video but runs on far too long after it has made its point. If you are a van Hove completist or are eager for a chance to see fine French actors, you might find the evening worthwhile. If not, I suggest renting the movie with a superb cast that includes Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Charlotte Rampling and Helmut Berger. Running time: two hours, ten minutes; no intermission. In French with English surtitles.