Aimée & Jaguar

Aimée & Jaguar is an unusual love story that begins in Berlin in 1943. The young Jewish woman Felice works under a false identity at a Nazi daily newspaper, from which she passes confidential information on to the resistance. Felice is a liberated and self-assured woman who openly has lesbian relationships. For a long time, however, she hides her true self when she falls for the elegant blonde Lilly Wust, the epitome of the respectable bourgeoisie. As a mother of four with a husband at the front, Lilly fits perfectly into Hitler's image of the ideal woman. Lilly is indeed rather astonished when Felice makes a pass at her, but once she has recovered from the shock, she discovers that she returns Felice's feelings.

There is little hope for a lesbian relationship between a Jewish woman and an Aryan in Nazi Germany, and perhaps precisely for that reason the two women cling to their love until it inevitably has to end.

Nazi Germany has often been depicted on film, but "Aimée & Jaguar" offers a refreshingly new and fascinating angle on history. On the plus side there is also the convincing period portrait, but the love story ought to have been tightened up, as it has several dead stretches. The story simply cannot sustain a running time of over two hours, at least not in Max Färberböck's colourless direction.