Aimee & Jaguar

[Guest guest]

If you live anywhere that you can see foreign films, this one is a must see! The

brief description given here can barely begin to describe the power of this

movie. I find it significant also that such movies are now being made in Germany

by Germans.

 

"Aimee & Jaguar"

 

A true story based on Lilly Wust's memoirs, "Aimee & Jaguar" in a lush epic that

captures the eerie atmosphere of Berlin in the first years of World War 11,

where a lively nightlife raged on even as the bombs fell and well dressed

Germans stepped over corpses on their way to the symphony. It was in this chaos

that Felice Schragenheim led a secret life. Although a Jew and a communist, she

used an assumed name and worked for the Nazi ministry of propaganda, passing

along information to the resistance. Pretty and gregarious, she was just 21 when

she saw a photograph of Lilly Wust and fell in love with a woman she had never

met.

Wust was the wife of a Nazi officer, away on active duty. The mother of four,

she so epitomized the Aryan ideal that she had been given the bronze "Mother

Cross" medal. Introduced by a mutual acquaintance, Lilly and Felice lived a

two-year love story until Felice was captured by the Gestapo and disappeared.

When "Aimee & Jaguar" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 1999, Maria

Schrader and Juliane Kohler were co-winners of the Best Actress Award for their

brilliant performances as the doomed lovers Aimee and Jaguar, their nicknames

for each other. Wust later divorced her husband and raised her children as Jews.

In 1981 she was honored by the German government for her efforts to shelter

other Jews after Felice's capture, and last year she joined Oskar Schindler as

one of the few non-Jews to receive Israel's "Righteous Among the Nations" honor.

Now 87, Wust still keeps a candle lit beneath a photo of Felice on her wall.

Unrated, 125 minutes.