Aimee & Jaguar movie review & film summary (2000)

It is pretty clear that Germany is losing the war, that the end is not far away; the bombs rain on Berlin, and through her underground sources, Felice knows even better than her editor of the German defeats. The movie suggests that a few Jews who did escape identification were able to survive in a sort of shadowland. Early in the film, a German woman in a restroom sells food stamps to women she knows (or assumes) are Jewish, and later other Germans know Felice's secret but do not reveal it. They support a genocidal state, but are unwilling to take personal action. There is even a subtle and delicately written scene suggesting that the editor of the Nazi paper realizes Felice is not what she seems, and chooses not to know.

For Lilly, love with Felice is a revelation. At first she doesn't even realize her new friend is a lesbian, and when Felice kisses her, she reacts with horror. On reflection, she is not so horrified at all, and soon they are lovers. There is a sex scene in the movie, not graphic in its visual details but startling in its intensity, that is one of the most truthful I have seen. Most lovers in the movies are too in command; the actors fear the embarrassment of lost control. A person having an orgasm can look funny, even ridiculous, to an outsider, which is why you won't find many movie stars who really want to fake it all that well. When Lilly and Felice make love, there is a trembling, a fear, a loss of control, that colors all the scenes that follow.

Maria Schrader plays Felice with a kind of doomed and reckless bravery. She must know her days are numbered. She cannot get away with her deception forever, and when she is caught, she will not be just any Jew, but one who penetrated to the center of the Nazi establishment--who partied with those who had condemned her to death. She is initially attracted to Lilly as sort of a lark; it might be fun to take this officer's wife, this mother of four little Aryans and conquer her. Then they are both surprised by love.