Early on in Andres Veiel’s documentary “Riefenstahl,” Leni Riefenstahl says that she believes the opposite of politics is art. “If you feel things intensely as an artist … you live your life so ardently, so intensely, so passionately, that there’s no room for interest in real world issues,” she says. The interviewer, to his credit, pushes back on this notion, asking her if – after everything – she still believes that art and politics have no effect on each other.
We never see the direct answer to this question. Instead, over the course of roughly two hours, we come to know a woman who is desperate to separate her art and herself from the political context in which she worked. Riefenstahl was a 1930s German filmmaker who became renowned for her prowess behind the camera, creating images of great cinematic beauty. She also is best known for making multiple Nazi propaganda films during that time period, exalting supposed Aryan physical beauty and superiority.
The film is a treasure trove of effects from Riefenstahl’s estate, things like archival footage, letters, documents, drafts of her memoirs, recordings, photographs, and so much more – all carefully maintained in order to paint a picture of the woman she wanted to be remembered as. After the war, Riefenstahl attempted to distance herself from the Third Reich, claiming to be apolitical, or that she had no idea of the horrors the Nazis committed until it was too late. Veiel’s documentary does not necessarily try to understand Riefenstahl the woman, but rather tries to understand the creation of her public persona, particularly as it relates how the message of her work and life lives on today.
If you don’t know who Leni Riefenstahl was, the documentary can feel a bit like getting thrown into the deep end. There are no talking heads, no historians to rattle off biographical information about Riefenstahl’s early life, no experts to give historical context. But the footage and Riefenstahl’s own words speak for themselves.
Riefenstahl’s movie career began as an actress within Germany’s “mountain film” genre, a type of movie in which nature plays a key role in the drama. She would eventually become a director of these types of movies herself, releasing one of her better-known films, “The Blue Light,” in 1932. The very same year, she heard Adolf Hitler speak at a rally and, moved by his words, asked to meet with him personally.
Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda films include “Triumph of the Will,” a documentary about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg, and largely considered one of the most effective propaganda films of all time; and “Olympia,” shooting the 1936 Berlin Olympics in a way that emphasized the physical prowess of the German people. “Riefenstahl” pays particularly close attention to both of these films, as well as Riefenstahl’s well-documented close connections with higher ups in the Nazi party, such as Joseph Goebbels and Hitler himself.
The documentary never tries to absolve Riefenstahl of any crimes or past associations – although she does plenty of that herself – but it does make an attempt to humanize her, just a little. We see footage of her and her high school friends reuniting, gabbing like any group of girls would do. The film touches briefly on her childhood, particularly her abusive father, but it’s far more interested in the ways in which she tried to control the story of her life, in every regard. In an interview, Veiel points out that Riefenstahl significantly toned down descriptions of her father’s abuse in various writings over the years. This is not pointed out as a way to catch her in some sort of lie, but rather to emphasize a desire on her part to not seem like a victim – to not seem weak.
And yet, she has no trouble casting herself as a victim of lies and slander in various interviews over years, getting angry whenever anyone brings up well-documented examples of her activities during the Nazi era. The film is edited masterfully, showing the audience Riefenstahl’s adamant denials as it weaves in the evidence. She says that she didn’t know the extent of what was going on in the concentration camps until it was too late. But for her film “Lowlands” – the last feature film she would direct – she used Sinti and Roma children and adults who were being held in Nazi camps as extras. According to the documentary, many of those extras were later sent to Auschwitz and killed. Riefenstahl claims that she saw all of them after the war, and that they were alive and well.
The film continues on in this fashion, interlacing interviews, documents and old footage to paint a harrowing portrait. But the most terrifying aspect of “Riefenstahl” is not what happened back then, but rather what happened after the fact. After one particularly intense interview on a talk show, Riefenstahl receives letters and calls from various supporters, all of the mindset that she has been unfairly persecuted. These supporters represent a human desire for detachment – to say, the past is the past, and move on – and a corresponding anger and blame for those who refuse to forget. Riefenstahl might have passed away, but that terrifying sentiment lives on.
“Riefenstahl” is playing at this year’s Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Tickets can be purchased online.
