The Berlin Affair (1985)

Interesting facts

The Berlin Affair is a 1985 Italian-German film, directed by Liliana Cavani and starring Gudrun Landgrebe, Kevin McNally and Mio Takaki. Set in Berlin, 1938, it sees the wife of a rising Nazi diplomat fall in love with Mitsuko Matsugae, the daughter of the Japanese ambassador and an artist. Her husband finds out, and moves to break up the affair. However he soon falls in love with Mitsuko himself, leading to the intervention of officials higher in the system. The film is based upon the novel Quicksand by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

Production

The original title of the film, Interno Berlinese, can be translated as Inside Berlin or Interior Berliner. The story is based upon Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's novel Quicksand, or Manji, published serial from 1928 to 1930. Cavani was drawn to the novel because of its dramatic intensity and extreme economy, his capacity to bring us, as nearly breathless spectators, inside the meaning of seemingly insignificant details.

The Berlin Affair was the first film produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in Italy for Cannon. It was shot in Rome at the Paolis Studios and Vienna from April to July 1985. Gudrun Landgrabe, one of the discoveries of the New German Cinema, had appeared in Robert van Ackeren's A Woman in Flames 1982, Edgar Reitz’s Heimat 1984, and István Szabó’s Colonel Redl 1985. Kevin McNally, a British actor, plays the husband.

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