Andres Veiel’s documentary, Riefenstahl, walks us through the life of one of film’s most accomplished and skilled filmmakers, yet contentious figures, Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl, once a celebrated German director, became infamous as the creator of Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) — films that remain among the most controversial products of Nazi propaganda. At the time, these films were at the cutting edge on the technical front, and claimed the admiration of chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler himself, but according to Riefenstahl were merely apolitical artistic achievements that heralded the beauty of human bodies, movement and form. Veiel’s documentary, accompanied by commentary from Andrew Bird, seeks to peer beyond this material, taking an intimate look at the director’s previously unreleased tapes, memoirs and personal letters that were released with her estate, to formulate a well-informed analysis of the gap between the myth she built for herself and the reality of her political entanglements.
‘Separating the art from the artist’ has become a staple of modern debate within various forms of media, but Riefenstahl departs from this, instead reckoning with the question of the artistic value of political propaganda, and if it can be considered a manifestation of one’s own self expression at all, or merely an unsubstantial bi-product of a nation’s attempt to manufacture political support and consent. Leni herself makes this claim, acknowledging her involvement within the fascist regime, but disputing the notion that her work was produced with an inbuilt political agenda: ‘I was inexperienced in that area’ (of politics). ‘Politics is the opposite of everything that has fulfilled and fascinated me throughout my life.’ These words, spoken in the latter period of her life, signify Riefenstahl’s alleged artistic philosophy – one that seeks to transcend ‘real-world’ problems, like politics, (as she later describes it) to produce pictures that reckon with the enduring human fascination of beauty and what it means to be beautiful. The documentary succeeds in representing Riefenstahl’s artistic skill also, using clips from the The Blue Light (1932) to demonstrate both her prowess and style.
The value of the documentary lies within its ability to place her statements within the broader context of the time, observing likenesses between Leni’s interests and that of the regime she operated under and became allied with, interrogating her true intentions. While Veiel chronologises the director’s life, a specific theme is consistently reinforced throughout that comes to underline and define Riefenstahl – racial and athletic superiority. Veiel sifts through the tapes of Leni’s visit to the Nuba tribe of Sudan, where she documented the tribal experience through photography. The documentary is sequenced in such a way that comparisons are drawn between the eugenicist ideals of the Nazis (so strikingly depicted in Olympia), and Riefenstahl’s own fetishisation of the African body, reinforcing the notion that the director shared fundamental interests with the regime she served, evidenced in a tape recording: ‘I was always captivated by the beauty of the subject. In particular the harmony that radiates when outer beauty is combined with inner beauty.’ A cut to Leni describing the toned and muscular stature of African American Olympian, Jesse Owens, is an early suggestion of a more insidious infatuation with ‘superior’ body types.
The Nuba sequence is key in drawing parallels between Riefenstahl’s pre-war and post-war work , a perspective that aligns with prominent critics such as Susan Sontag: ‘Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl’s portrait of them is consistent with some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. […] Riefenstahl seems only to have modified the ideas of her Nazi films.’ The ending sequence of the documentary ingeniously reinforces that Leni’s intent, whether consciously aligned with Nazi eugenicist thought or not, indeed meant very little, as audiences across the world will interpret her art with their own preconceptions and ideas, perceiving her as one of the core faces of Nazi ideals, leading one furious caller to lament with vile vigour: ‘And who was ever more honest than Leni Riefenstahl? That little woman who portrayed the most beautiful human beings and not the cripples!’
Reifenstahl is effective in counterbalancing Leni’s own personal claims with her own personal actions, never explicitly making conclusions, but consistently questioning and exposing the asymmetry and discrepancies between the director’s words and work. Riefenstahl refuses to settle for simple judgments. Veiel neither excuses nor sensationalizes; he patiently assembles evidence that demonstrates how Riefenstahl spent decades rewriting her own history, casting herself as a misunderstood visionary while avoiding responsibility for her complicity. The film’s pacing is deliberate, at times dense, but this careful unfolding mirrors the painstaking process of peeling back self-invented layers of myth. This deconstruction of myth is achieved solely by the archived tapes, letters and films, resisting the formation of a neat conclusion delivered in frank terms, instead building a case and encouraging the viewer to come to a personal conclusion. Some viewers may find frustration in this reality, but this format effectively reflects the more complex persona of the documentary’s subject.
Andrew Bird’s narration provides a useful guide, as he nudges and urgers the viewer to remain cognisant of Leni’s propensity for deception: ‘For something to be remembered other things must be forgotten.’ When considered in conjunction with a later scene of a Riefenstahl interview conducted in the later years of her life, in which she is seen demanding an alteration of the overhead lighting to obscure her wrinkles, Bird’s statement is a stark reminder that Riefenstahl, a figure with an immense sense of vanity, through her carefully selected recordings and documents, was attempting to manufacture the Bayeux tapestry of her own life. Veiel succeeds in depicting the director as a character plagued by the opinions of those around her – in one sense out of fear of prosecution for her involvement with fascist propaganda, but primarily out of her obsession with gaining the admiration of those around her, in various avenues of life. These findings help make this investigation and documentary, two decades after her death, a necessary endeavour that seeks, and succeeds, in providing a well-rounded, alternative viewpoint that pierces the surface to evaluate Leni’s individual, complex characteristics.
Riefenstahl can be described as a head-on confrontation with uncomfortable truths, more than a conventional biography. It compels us to recognize that technical brilliance and political complicity can coexist in the same body of work—and that celebrating the first without acknowledging the second is dangerous. By stripping away Riefenstahl’s self-serving narratives, Veiel reframes her as both a pioneer of cinema and a cautionary example of art in the service of ideology, in an essential piece of investigative film that must be witnessed.
Riefenstahl is out now in selected cinemas, on Blu-Ray and via streaming services – full details and links here
Review by Thomas Hill
Keep up to date with all new content on Joyzine via our
Facebook | Bluesky | Instagram | Threads | Mailing List