The film tells the story of the "ménage à trois" between Nietzsche, Paul Rée and Lou Salome, the beautiful woman they both were desperately in love with - Nietzsche proposed to her three times, being turned down every time, as she preferred friendship. Nevertheless she agreed to live with them both, having them both as lovers, which of course could end in no other way but badly. Still, these were the most important years of Nietzsche, during which he wrote his major works, and after the break with Paul Rée and Salome, his life was more or less finished, writing a few more books that found no readers and then suffering a total collapse, possibly the consequence of much abuse of both opium and sex of all kinds - Wagner said that he attracted syphilis from visitng too many gay brothels in Genoa. Paul Rée became a doctor and died att 52 in an accident in the Alps - in the film he dies being raped to death by homosexualls, which couldn't be more wrong.
That's the default of the film. It wallows in sexual exaggerations, which is totally unnecessary and only drags the film down in baseness, posthumously humiliating Nietzsche. The actots are perfect, though, but the best performance is by Virna Lisi, who plays the sister Elisabeth, who married an antisemite and insisted on a break of her famous brother with the "Jewishly contaminated" Paul Rée and Lou Salome, who both had Jewish ancestry, althopugh no believers. Nietzsche accused his sister of causing the major disaster of his life by interfering in his relationships with the two people he loved the most.
So it is a tragedy, and it is beautifully filmed - no matter how you might dislike and object to the exaggerations of the film, it is a work of art first of all of outstanding beauty, and Liliana Cavani, the director, was herself the scenographer. The music is equally prominent and enhances the beauty of the film. Erland Josephson is better in dark depressive films of Ingmar Bergman, while here he is miscast and not convincing, entirely lacking Nietzsche's German temperament. Robert Powell, on the other hand, is another asset here. It is worth seeing at least once, although it needs some endurance.
That's the default of the film. It wallows in sexual exaggerations, which is totally unnecessary and only drags the film down in baseness, posthumously humiliating Nietzsche. The actots are perfect, though, but the best performance is by Virna Lisi, who plays the sister Elisabeth, who married an antisemite and insisted on a break of her famous brother with the "Jewishly contaminated" Paul Rée and Lou Salome, who both had Jewish ancestry, althopugh no believers. Nietzsche accused his sister of causing the major disaster of his life by interfering in his relationships with the two people he loved the most.
So it is a tragedy, and it is beautifully filmed - no matter how you might dislike and object to the exaggerations of the film, it is a work of art first of all of outstanding beauty, and Liliana Cavani, the director, was herself the scenographer. The music is equally prominent and enhances the beauty of the film. Erland Josephson is better in dark depressive films of Ingmar Bergman, while here he is miscast and not convincing, entirely lacking Nietzsche's German temperament. Robert Powell, on the other hand, is another asset here. It is worth seeing at least once, although it needs some endurance.