Fascism and Sleaze (Cabaret (DVD))

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Cabaret (DVD)
Date:	13/03/02 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Minnelli, The atmosphere

Disadvantages: None

Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles, Joel Grey as the fey MC of the Kit Kat Klub and Michael York as Bryan, the stereotypical English gent are the three main protagonists in a simply amazing film, which is on the surface a musical, but dig deeper and you find a particularly barbed commentary on the fascist goings on in the Germany of the early 1930's, all mingled in with a story about a night club.

It's lavish and sumptuous and Minnelli has never been better than she was here. The musical numbers are staged beautifully and you can enjoy this film on many different levels - you can either soak up the atmosphere and listen to the wonderful music or you can enjoy that barely disguised underlying satire on the German plans for world domination.

This is a cruel, heartless film for the most part but wrapped around a love story of sorts. It's set in the decadent Berlin underworld of Germany in the 1930's with the oppression of the Nazis all around us, but in Cabaret, oh Cabaret, we don't care.

Here we've got the cabaret scene as the tool of that oppression, keeping the masses under control and satiating their lust for sleaze.

God, THIS FILM IS AMAZING.

The LA Times described Cabaret as "An exquisitely sculpted milestone in the history of the film musical" and it won a pretty startling eight Oscars. It was only a musical by association with all the songs coming in the setting of the club, used as metaphors for the dangerous and deadly deeds that were going on in the real world all around them. It's wonderfully controlled and shaped and set in some wonderful scenery both internally and externally with the nightclub scenes in particular exuding a decadent and sinful menace under the direction of Grey.

The film is set in the menacing world of Berlin in 1931, as Hitler rose to power and drove towards his peculiar goal of a world fit for the perfect Aryan specimen. Anything went in those
days and the stark menace of the Nazi hordes are perfectly pictured in the film.

The story follows York as its main character. He plays Bryan a young English academic who has moved to Berlin, staying in a boarding house where he meets Sally Bowles (Minnelli) who performs as a dancer-singer in the cabaret at the Kit Kat Klub, and falls in love with her.

However, Sally has her sights set on making it to the top and is more attracted by the attentions of a rich Baron than this quiet young man. The moral dilemma faced by the characters is expertly dissected as all round them the Nazi influence grows more pervasive and claustrophobic, influencing the sets at the club. The satirical number with Grey confessing his love for a gorilla and pleading that one should look beneath the surface, spikily lambasting the Nazi prejudices. Already we have seen the savage beating to death of a man who had earlier ejected a Nazi youth from the club.

There are so many wonderful moments in this film that there really isn't time here to list them all, but rest assured, this is one of the most vivid denunciations of oppression, prejudice and evil you will ever come across, and everyone connected with it must take credit.

The three main players each deliver probably the best performances of their careers and York and Minnelli interplay wonderfully well.

RECOMMENDED IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS...


Screenplay by: Jayne Presson Allen, based on musical stage play by: John Van Druten, which was based on the book, "Cabaret," by Joe Masteroff. Music by: John Kander. Produced by: Cy Fever

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