In Aimee & Jaguar, the wife of a Nazi soldier falls in love with a Jewish woman working for the underground in 1943 Berlin. We believe the intensity of their passion, not just because the ex- traordinary story is true, but because Max Farberbock's sensual adaptation is a matter-of-fact embrace of the unconventional and dangerous during a terrible time. (Eighty-six-year-old Lilly Wust, nicknamed Aimee by her Jewish lover, still lives in Berlin.)
Although the very notion of a Nazi-Jewish lesbian relationship suggests Cabaret-like decadence, Farberbock's engrossing debut conveys the devotion between Aimee (Juliane Kohler) and Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader), who called herself Jaguar. Dark-haired Schrader stares with I-dare-you eyes, playing a brave flirt; blond, dewy Kohler smiles, playing a woman astonished by new feelings. They could have been any lovers, anywhere — but, this artful snapshot taken from memory reminds us, they most certainly were not. B+
