Leni Riefenstahl frowns in anguish and clenches her fists frantically upon being asked whether she regrets her association with Adolf Hitler. A long silence ensues. She is unable to produce an answer. That of course is an answer per se. The interview takes place on television, with a Riefenstahl of advanced age. Her devotion to the Nazi regime for which she once worked remains unwavering. As much as she refuses to recognise that her heart still belongs to the Third Reich, her body language and the tone of her voice give away her genuine sentiments and allegiance.
This is the very first scene of Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, and a premise that’s repeated ad infinitum throughout the 115-minute documentary. We watch as Leni Riefenstahl hesitates to refute her Nazi allegiances on television, on various shows mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. Her voice melts with tenderness as she discusses her affiliation with the Fuehrer, propagandist Joseph Goebbels and architect Albert Speer. The fact that Goebbels attempted to rape her twice is of little concern, and instead she describes their relationship in a very positive light. She remained close friends with Speer throughout his entire life, and spoke to him regularly after he left prison in 1966.
Leni Riefenstahl was the Third Reich’s most successful filmmaker, with movies such as Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) changing the history of cinema, and the way documentaries were made. She lived 101 years, dying early into the 21st century. She is perhaps the most important woman filmmaker in history, if a far less enviable human being.
The most shocking action takes place when Riefenstahl is not aware that the camera is still switched on. She explodes and verbally attacks just about anyone on set. She is extremely uncomfortable talking about Jews, and the mere mention of the Holocaust could cause her to storm out of any engagement. Nevertheless, she claims that she was horrified to find out about the gas chambers and other horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. Her alleged shock and remorse aren’t very convincing, particularly as Veiel reveals that she probably knew about concentration camps all along, and may have even seen some execution with her own eyes. Riefenstahl’s voice is laden with disdain as she implausibly claims that she had nothing against Jews.
Her supremacist sentiments are very difficult to conceal. She was accused of not helping the Roma actors of her film Lowlands (filmed during WW2, but released only in 1954) to evade certain death in an extermination camp. She denied knowing that any of them had died, despite being challenged by the surviving few. When the matter ended up in court, she asked rhetorically: “who is more likely to commit perjury, me or the gypsies?”. She is convinced that a German judge would trust her and rule in her favour because gypsies are inferior and less trustworthy.
Her futile obsession with preserving her image is also addressed. She proudly showcases her handsome toy boy Horst Kettner, 40 years her junior, to the entire world. In fact, they would spend the rest of her life together. At the age of 97, she nervously gazes into her pocket mirror and orders people to fix her make-up just as she is about to give an interview for a documentary about Hitler and Speer.
The problem with these fascinating snippets into the life of a very controversial filmmaker is that they don’t say anything new. It has been a widely known and extremely well-documented fact that Leni Riefenstahl was an expletive-laden-outburst-prone Nazi sympathiser who very poorly feigned her remorse and her sentiments towards Jews, gypsies, or anyone who did not fit the Aryan ideal.
Crucially, Veiel’s documentary fails to investigate or even to acknowledge the artistic merit of Riefenstahl’s work. There is not effort reveal what is it that made that technique unique, and how she influenced the many artists that came after her. The images of Triumph of the Will and Olympia are very few and far between, as the films remain a taboo (or even prohibited) in certain parts of the world. I believe that the BFI has never screened either one of them. The most fascinating aspect of Riefenstahl’s life is not that she was an old woman unable to reconcile her nazi sympathies with post-war ideals, but instead the fact we film-lovers filmmakers are unable to reconcile the momentous artistic merit of an her work with her objectionable ideologies. In other words, we are unable to accept that horrible people can create beautiful things. I long to see a documentary on the everlasting legacy of Riefenstahl’s work. For good or for bad.
That’s unlikely to happen any time soon, though. During his acceptance speech at the latest Berlinale, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude said that he feared that the next edition of the event would open to Triumph of the Will. That was in reference to the meteoric rise of the far right in Germany. The merit of Riefenstahl’s work is likely to remain buried deep undergrounds for as long as fascist ideologies continue to blossom on European soil.
Riefenstahl premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. Also showing at Tiff Romania. It is out in cinemas on Friday, May 9th. On VoD on Monday, June 9th.
