Aimee & Jaguar.

Aimee & Jaguar * Written by Max Farberbock and Rona Munro * Directed by Max Farberbock * Starring Juliane Kohler and Maria Schrader * Zeitgeist Films

The place is Berlin, the time 1943. Felice Schragenheim, a Jewish resistance fighter, falls for Lilly Wust, a Nazi officer's wife (and mother of four). Sophisticated and adorable, Felice is irresistible. The naive Lilly falls in return, so astounded at loving a woman that she's oblivious to the fact that Felice and her circle are all Jews, The two launch a passionate romance that bemuses everyone around them. Felice renames herself Jaguar and her lover Aimee. At last she tells her beloved the secret of her Jewish identity--and having told, Felice chooses not to run for her life like her friends but to stay for love, braving the dangers of Berlin,

Aimee & Jaguar, the movie, is based on the headline-making book by Erica Fischer, who interviewed the real-life Lilly Wust [see article on page 44] in the early '90s. Now it's come to life in a lavish period film that delivers the ultimate lesbian fantasy of a perfect love in, well, imperfect circumstances. Juliane Kohler as Lilly and Maria Schrader as Felice are not only exquisite but can act really well, And anyone who sees a single color shot will rush to reserve a ticket: Lush, saturated colors complement gorgeous '40s clothing and sexy stars, If only the narrative were as well handled as the costumes! Instead, writer-director Max Farberbock's overlong film veers from confusion to tedium and back,

The movie's shortcomings are not totally his fault, There's also the character of Lilly herself, In any lesbian love story, it's imperative that we all swoon along with our heroine as she falls madly in love, but here it's hard, "Lose the Nazi bimbo!" we want to shout to Felice, "Get out of bed! The Gestapo is coming!" Historical hindsight and Aryan stupidity do a grumpy viewer make, Still, the film has its moments, Its spirited re-creations of Jewish life and lesbian frolics, especially any scenes of Felice with her pals and ex-lover Ilse, are downright illuminating, They can compensate for even fatally bad taste in love,

Author and critic Rich is senior correspondent for KQED-TV San Francisco's Independent View,

Find out more about the film Aimee and Jaguar by visiting www.advocate.com