"Aimée & Jaguar" is a German movie from over 15 years ago about two women, one of them a Jew, having a relationship during the years of World War II. There is actually a frame as the film starts and ends with one of the women being very old many years later and reflecting about the plot I describe above. The film scored a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language movie (where it lost to Almodovar's "Todo sobre mi madre", but came short at the Oscars despite it being Germany's submission. The two lead actresses Köhler and Schrader won Best Actress at the German Film Awards. Director is Max Färberböck and writer Rona Munro and it is probably the most known film for both of them.
I'm not too big on Schrader as an actress, but Köhler is fine. The supporting cast includes many known names, at least here in Germany: Detlev Buck, already a successful director at that point, Heike Makatsch, Dorkas Kiefer, Dani Levy, Johanna Wokalek, Rosel Zech, Ulrich Matthes and Desirée Nick. Unfortunately all this does not suffice to make this work as a good film. There were several parts where they included nudity (during a (not so) artsy photo-shooting) and I felt it was just for the sake of it. I did not see any artistic or dramatic value in these. The rest is as you would expect it from one of these uncountable mediocre German war-related movies. Hitler's alleged death is referenced. Flight from the Nazis is included. And lots of other stereotypes where you can say it was done already many times and better usually. The only slightly good thing is that they did not go for a forced happy ending, but let reality make the choice for an unhappy ending. What also certainly did not help was that none of the characters were particularly likable.
All in all, I cannot recommend this movie unless you are really really interested in German films set during war time or Lesbian movies. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. The film runs for over two hours and to me it dragged a lot.
I'm not too big on Schrader as an actress, but Köhler is fine. The supporting cast includes many known names, at least here in Germany: Detlev Buck, already a successful director at that point, Heike Makatsch, Dorkas Kiefer, Dani Levy, Johanna Wokalek, Rosel Zech, Ulrich Matthes and Desirée Nick. Unfortunately all this does not suffice to make this work as a good film. There were several parts where they included nudity (during a (not so) artsy photo-shooting) and I felt it was just for the sake of it. I did not see any artistic or dramatic value in these. The rest is as you would expect it from one of these uncountable mediocre German war-related movies. Hitler's alleged death is referenced. Flight from the Nazis is included. And lots of other stereotypes where you can say it was done already many times and better usually. The only slightly good thing is that they did not go for a forced happy ending, but let reality make the choice for an unhappy ending. What also certainly did not help was that none of the characters were particularly likable.
All in all, I cannot recommend this movie unless you are really really interested in German films set during war time or Lesbian movies. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. The film runs for over two hours and to me it dragged a lot.