Now we
travel to WW2 Germany for 1999's AIMEE AND JAGUAR, starring Maria Schrader as a
young Jewish woman who has obtained a fake identity and works a job at a Nazi
propaganda newspaper, putting her in a front row seat to see the last days of
Berlin.
She's
also a lesbian, engaged in a sometimes platonic, sometimes romantic
relationship with a maid (Johanna Wokalek) to an Aryan housewife (Juliane
Kohler) who is married to a Nazi (Detley Buck). It isn't long before Schrader's
gaze meets Kohler's and she sets sights on conquering the seemingly
unconquerable – can she seduce an anti-Semite who is married to a Nazi?
What
begins as a dangerous game blurs into the realm of real romance, and serves as
just another example of Schrader's flirtations with danger in a dangerous
world. Just living is dangerous for her – a Jew in the heart of Berlin,
hobnobbing with the elite, can't help but live with danger. This relationship
starts out as just another risk but develops into something more as Kohler's
unexpectedly returned and intense affection changes Schrader.
The
script delves surprisingly deep into relationship issues, not content to just
rest on the fact that it's a Jew/Nazi lesbian love story. Rather than allowing
the characters be the one dimensional reflections of their titles, it allows
them to be real three dimensional people who have thoughts, feelings and
opinions. In one particularly powerful scene, Kohler takes Schrader to task for
treating her no better than her husband or other suitors have – as someone who
can just be left alone and abandoned when it's convenient.
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