Riefenstahl

2024 [GERMAN]

Action / Biography / Documentary

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 97% · 60 reviews
IMDb Rating 7.1/10 10 1196 1.2K

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Plot summary

Explores Leni Riefenstahl's artistic legacy and her complex ties to the Nazi regime, juxtaposing her self-portrayal with evidence suggesting awareness of the regime's atrocities.

Director

Top cast

Ulrich Noethen as Narrator
Adolf Hitler as Self
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.03 GB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
25 fps
1 hr 55 min
Seeds 31
2.12 GB
1920*1080
English 5.1
NR
25 fps
1 hr 55 min
Seeds 58

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by woutervandersluis 6 / 10

Same one sided story as other documentaries

Again we are shown a life documentary about one of the famous/notorious and talented filmmakers in the world Leni Riefenstahl. Yes there is more historical material as in the predecessing movies but the story is the same: the onesided accentuation of her admiration of the nazies in the thirties which colored her work at the time. To little is told why she was so good in her work with completely new techniques. I would have liked to know more about that.Riefenstahl admits her mistake being pro nazi at the time. She says unlike most Germans now openly that she was like 80% of the German population. And she shows in her movie Triumf des Willens why they all were so enthousiastic. That she turned away in her work from working for the nazies, seeing life what happened in 1940 during the invasion of Poland is also in this film only and repeatedly presented as a nazi commitment. Yes she realized she was committed and refused to go on being so.The point which had to be accentuated in this movie was Riefenstahl artistic fascination of human beauty but even her admiration for the Nuba warriors is seen as suspicious.
Reviewed by rubenm 7 / 10

A deep dive into the personality of Hitler's favourite movie maker

Can despicable propaganda also be great art? It is a question that forever will be raised when German director Leni Riefenstahl's work is discussed. She is admired as being one of the greatest German directors ever (by Quentin Tarantino for example), but she is also despised for making the Third Reich look glamorous.Riefenstahl herself has always denied being a nazi herself. In her view, she was an artist who happened to be working for Hitler. In interviews she has always insisted to have been unaware of the atrocities of the regime.After her death in 2003 this self created image was quickly shattered. The striking contrast between her own statements and the historical facts were already the subject of the recent TV documentary 'Riefenstahl - the End of a Myth', and are more deeply researched in the documentary movie 'Riefenstahl'.Director Andres Veiel has painstakingly combed her entire estate, searching for letters, newspaper clippings and official documents to confront Riefenstahl's words with reality. This research shows even more clearly how manipulative Riefenstahl was. But at the same time, it is very fascinating to see how her huge ego and her fearless ambition helped shape her place in cinematographic history.In a Q&A during the Film Festival in Ghent, Veiel said that at first, he wanted to create a Riefenstahl-avatar in his film, an alternative Leni, created from the personal letters and diary fragments in her estate. But in the end, the material itself was so clear that it could speak for itself. There is no doubt that Riefenstahl felt deep sympathy and admiration for the nazi movement. Veiel shows convincingly that her own world view was completely in line with the nazi ideology.The film contains a treasure trove of historic material. Very revealing is the footage of television interviews, made when the cameras were kept running while the interview was interrupted. Riefenstahl repeatedly becomes very angry when questions are being asked about her responsability as an artist and her involvement in the nazi movement.But even more revealing are the taped telephone conversations Riefenstahl held with her many admirers. Whenever her artistic integrity was put into doubt, she received letters of support and sympathetic phone calls. Many Germans agreed that in the 1930's it was very hard to resist the nazi movement, and that the passive supporters of Hitler are being judged too hard.Andres Veiel himself considers his film a lesson for today. Riefenstahl's capability of recreating her own image and shaping the past in her advantage, is similar to the multitude of fake news that is being created by populists like Donald Trump.
Reviewed by ferguson-6 8 / 10

Leni - mostly in her own words

Greetings again from the darkness. Having one's name or work associated Hitler typically (but somehow not always these days) marks one as a pariah or persona non grata. For artists, the rules can be a bit blurred, and filmmaker Andres Veiel takes on the story of Leni Riefenstahl, in hopes of removing some of the blur.Leni Riefenstahl was a former actress who became the Reich's preeminent filmmaker best known as the director of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1935), the ultimate propaganda film for the Nazi party, and OLYMPIA (1938), her version of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Having access to her private family archives, filmmaker Veiel takes the deepest dive yet into her life and approach. He opens with her appearance on a 1978 talk show where she is asked if she now considers her association with Hitler to have been a mistake. She bows her head and the clip is cut before we hear the answer (if there was one), though the remainder of the documentary uses her own words and actions to pretty much answer the question.There have been other films about Leni. The most well-known is probably Ray Muller's THE WONDERFUL, HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1993), which Veiel references here. Still, nothing previous feeds us the wealth of photos and video clips served up by Veiel, offering such a full profile of one of the most controversial people from the WWII era. It should be noted that Leni died in 2003 at age 101, so she lived many decades of facing scrutiny and scorn. During her interviews and appearances on talk shows, very little attention was paid to the innovative filmmaking techniques she used in her work, but rather the attention was on her affiliation with Nazis, especially her 'friendly' relationship with Hitler.Photos of her with Hitler and Goebbels are shown, and the backlash from Goebbels' diaries are discussed. There is also a segment on Albert Speer, part of Hitler's inner circle and one of the war criminals sentenced at the Nuremburg trials. What we notice is that Leni was no wallflower. She often spoke her mind, and continued to hang her hat on the "art" label ... going so far as to state (in 1980) that 'art is the opposite of politics.' This defense likely eased her conscience a bit, but we can't help but be stunned when she claims "Peace" was the theme of her TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. It's a word that only she would associate with that film.In her defense, Leni states that most Germans supported the efforts and that things didn't end well for dissidents of the Reich. Mostly we find Leni in the George Costanza corner - 'it's not a lie if you believe it.' She was a smart and talented and strong woman who was calculating in everything she did or said. She discusses her long relationship (business and personal) with Horst Kettner, and we see the lovely home they shared. We also learn that it took Leni ten years to write her memoirs, and we are left wondering how much guilt she experienced - despite claiming that she knew nothing of the Holocaust (a topic Veiel addresses). We have all seen her extraordinary camera work on Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, yet no amount of filmmaking genius or creativity can overshadow her work for Hitler. Was she the first 'cancelled' artist? In fact, regardless of the pain, she must be remembered ... something this project from Andres Veiel ensures.IN THEATERS September 5 - NY (Lincoln Center, Quad Cinema) September 12 - LA (Laemmle Royal, Laemmle Town Center 5)
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