The film, in a nutshell: in a very theatrical set, setting and manner, an ancient intellectual gets truly obnoxious tenants. Unsurprisingly, it ends in tragedy.
Admittedly I am not a big fan of Visconti but this seems to me his worst work among those I've seen. The dialogues are horrendously stifled and the delivery is artificial; everything and everyone is pompous and replete with self-importance. At the beginning it's quite amusing to see the old protagonist squirm at the mores of his vulgar tenants, but soon you start to lose patience: with them because they are a bunch of narcissistic idiots. With him, because he can't summon the courage of kicking them out and locking the door. When the theme starts to steer towards the political, it does so with the agility and subtlety of someone walking in a full body plaster cast. The problem is that you're supposed to understand why the professor needs his tenants, even if they end up pulverising him like a breath of air in a sarcophagus; but for this to happen, they would have to have at least some redeeming quality. They have none. They aren't interesting nor smart, and the figure of the German gigolo, which is meant to be tragical, it's just farcical, possibly also because of the very modest ability of his actor. You feel sorry for the poor professor, whose loneliness is merciless exploited, but ultimately he's two-dimensional a character like all the others in this remarkably bad film.
Admittedly I am not a big fan of Visconti but this seems to me his worst work among those I've seen. The dialogues are horrendously stifled and the delivery is artificial; everything and everyone is pompous and replete with self-importance. At the beginning it's quite amusing to see the old protagonist squirm at the mores of his vulgar tenants, but soon you start to lose patience: with them because they are a bunch of narcissistic idiots. With him, because he can't summon the courage of kicking them out and locking the door. When the theme starts to steer towards the political, it does so with the agility and subtlety of someone walking in a full body plaster cast. The problem is that you're supposed to understand why the professor needs his tenants, even if they end up pulverising him like a breath of air in a sarcophagus; but for this to happen, they would have to have at least some redeeming quality. They have none. They aren't interesting nor smart, and the figure of the German gigolo, which is meant to be tragical, it's just farcical, possibly also because of the very modest ability of his actor. You feel sorry for the poor professor, whose loneliness is merciless exploited, but ultimately he's two-dimensional a character like all the others in this remarkably bad film.