The images of the Nazi troops and Hitler’s speech at the September 1934 congress have remained etched in the imagination of the entire world. They have something that mixes the terrifying and the hypnotic. There has even been talk of a Nazi staging in the way in which the parade itself, the editing, the music and the framing merged, creating a propaganda weapon that continues to be studied in film schools. The person responsible for recording these images was the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who after directing Blue light He was commissioned by Hitler to film a trilogy of works about his rallies in order to praise his fascist ideology.
To do this, he had almost unlimited resources, a team of 170 employees, including 36 cameramen and nine aerial cameras. To assemble The triumph of the will, Its second, and most famous, delivery lasted seven months. It was not the only work intended for Nazism, the diptych also Olympia on the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where his camera praised the athletic bodies and physical superiority of his athletes.
She was a friend of the regime and contributed through her work to its message spreading more effectively, like a virus through her propaganda films. However, at the end of the war, she always denied her membership in the Nazi party and repeated over and over again that art was apolitical and that she was only receiving an order. She was judged and defined only as a “follower”, but the shame of the actions committed by the Germans led her to make only one more film, Tiefland. However, Riefenstahl continued to participate in German public life. He gave interviews, appeared on television, published books, and received thousands of letters from his followers throughout his life.
In many history books, his contributions to filmmaking are more lauded than his links to Nazism, and it is for this reason that filmmaker Andres Veiel wanted to settle his scores with history in Riefenstahl, a documentary that shows the director’s absolute awareness of the atrocities committed, her connivance with Hitler and her friendship with the party leadership. She does this by breaking down the legacy of hundreds of boxes she left behind when she died, among which were diaries and cassettes in which she recorded telephone conversations.
Veiel does a meticulous job of ensuring that when studying Riefenstahl’s figure there is no ambiguity, especially in an era when the far right is on the rise. His documentary is also straightforward about one of those questions that should already be rhetorical: can’t art be political? Riefenstahl knew what he was doing by filming how he filmed and editing how he edited, and the effect he created, so he has a direct responsibility for what his images provoked.
He also found a letter in which he asked that “some Jews be expelled from there” so that a scene could be filmed. In response, an officer gave the order to “get rid of these Jews”, to whom some tried to flee and were shot, according to documents found in a legacy with which justice is done to her and her impunity.
It is important to bring this film to Venice at a time when there is a president who has his roots in a party with a fascist tradition and who denies the importance of being interested in these roots.
Andres Veiel
— Director
The filmmaker defines her as a pioneer in the field fake news, because “he lied his whole life.” “This is something we see every day in the United States, and I see it in Germany, where there is a party that praises National Socialism. I felt the need to address the importance of ideology and aesthetics. Deal with the roots of it, because I think we’ve ignored it,” Veiel told a small group of journalists at the Venice Film Festival, where the documentary premiered.
That it is in Venice is something that the director particularly appreciates, since Meloni’s extreme right governs in Italy. This is why he highlights the “courage” of the festival director, Alberto Barbera, who was appointed director of the Biennale “an intellectual who is part of a neo-fascist party”. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but a political statement. Here she was a heroine. He appeared three times with his films and won awards. The first woman to win here. So to present this film at a time when there is a president who has his roots in a party with a fascist tradition and who denies the importance of being interested in these roots, it’s great,” he adds.
As she delved into her legacy, it became even clearer that she was not only “caught up in the ideology of the Third Teich, but also in his ideology.” “When you hear him say that in a generation or two Germany will regain its morality, its virtue and its order, that clearly shows his aspiration for an authoritarian system. It’s terrifying and like a prophecy. But on his calendar, we found little notes where he marked a vote for the National Democratic Party, the party that denies the Holocaust, and he asked us to vote for him. She remained linked to fascism in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Fascism began in her life long before it officially began in ’33. She is the prototype of fascism,” he says.
What Veiel denies is that Riefenstahl is a good director and reduces her merits to being “a very good editor with a great director of photography, but as an author she was horrible, she didn’t know how to write scripts.” A staging that was also an exaltation of Nazi values. “Those who say that politics and art must be separated are innocent. When you look at Riefenstahl’s aesthetic, he doesn’t just celebrate the supremacy of the victors, the superiors, over the other side, minorities, homosexuals, the disabled. This dark side was part of the regime and its ideology,” he concludes.
He hopes that this documentary and cinema can open a debate that will help understand why “many young people vote for the right-wing AfD party in Germany”: “It is important to describe the dangers. This film is like a warning and I hope to create a kind of awareness of what could happen. This film is not only about the past, it is not only about the present. It is a film that tells us what could happen in the future.”
