Can a face be a mirror of a soul? In the latest documentary about Leni Riefenstahl by German film and theatre director and writer Andres Veiel, presented last week at the Venice Film Festival, the screen is filled with close-ups of its subject’s face. Subtly merging the capacity of cinema to use close-ups as narrative means and ages-old humans longing to know each other by reading their faces, Veiel cleverly reveals the manipulative nature of his film subject. The result of his thorough investigation and deep analysis is both disappointing and eye-opening at the same time – the mystery surrounding the favourite Hitler film actress and the celebrated director of the Berlin 1936 Olympics documentary was mostly created on purpose by Riefenstahl herself.
Who was Leni Riefenstahl
There is no better place for this film to have its world premiere than Lido, Venice. It was there that Riefenstahl’s career reached its peak in 1938 when she received the Coppa Mussolini (this was the name of the main festival prize until 1942) for Olympia as the best foreign film. What followed was, we learn from Veiel, a desperate quest to live up to it. A historic sequence in Veiel’s film shows Riefenstahl at the premiere of Olympia as she proudly holds a bouquet of roses that Adolf Hitler sent to Lido for her. This subtly contrasts her later fervid claims that she was an artist with no interest in politics and that her contacts with Third Reich officials were purely formal. Similarly, more recent tapes show Riefenstahl in East Africa photographing the Nuba warriors by mingling among them while they perform the rites. Later, we hear her claim in an interview that she avoids influencing the traditional culture of African peoples and only takes pictures from afar. Stephan Krumbiegel and his editing team did outstanding work, silently exposing Riefenstahl’s shameless bending of the truth according to her will.
Can a face be a mirror of a soul?
Personal Archive
In 2003, at the age of 103, Riefenstahl died. Veiel and his producer, Sandra Maischberger, were the first to obtain access to her archive. Seven hundred boxes filled with around 50.000 photos, hundreds of film canisters, correspondence, calendars, audio recordings, and private recordings of her partner Horst Kettner. A true treasure. In her book Leni Riefenstahl, Karriere einer Täterin (Career of a perpetrator, Orell Fuessli Verlag, 2020), Nina Gladitz reports that Riefenstahl’s neighbours from Kitzbuhel, where she lived at the end of the war, remember seeing her burn piles of celluloid shortly before the arrival of allied forces. Very early in his film, Veiel also observes that the archive has been redacted. Several other pieces of information from Gladitz’s book have also been confirmed, such as Riefenstahl’s meticulous court persecution of any attempt to publish information she didn’t like. We also hear, in the court case where she denied that the Roma people she used as extras while filming Lowlands (1954) were later killed in concentration camps, she is convinced the public will believe her and not «a handful of vagrants.» This makes Veiel’s decision to let the subject of his film speak for herself particularly smart. The morphing of close-ups of her film roles, from the «mountain films» by Louis Trenker to The Blue Light (Das blaue Licht ), talk shows, and interviews, is later confronted with the flow of transformations she demands as a condition for her public appearances. Orders to re-position the camera and change the lights to hide her wrinkles, but also violent requests to stop filming at her demand. This urge to excel at any cost, of course, has a dark side – contempt for the weak, adoration of physical strength, absolute obedience, and respect for a strong leader, values, in short, that are at the basis of Nazi ideology. As the film evolves, it becomes clear that this permeated Riefenstahl’s work and her life.
Sinister Voices
In the early 1930s, due to the rise of the Nazis, film professionals left Germany, and by then, blossoming German cinematography had collapsed. Fritz Lang left in 1933, and Marlene Dietrich a few years later. By staying, Riefenstahl could have taken up their place. Veiel, however, reveals another aspect. She remained not because of the opportunity to build a splendid filmmaking career (the opportunity she never really seized) but because, with all her being, she shared the Nazi ideology. What betrayed her was not what she said or did but what she kept in her archives. In the mid-1970s, Riefenstahl appeared in a late-night talk show alongside Elfriede Kretschmer, a near contemporary who was an anti-Nazi activist during the war. Kretschmer made it clear that she didn’t believe Riefenstahl was ignorant of Nazi crimes. Riefenstahl was outraged, claiming in tears that there are many Germans like her suffering because of such unfounded accusations. Riefenstahl recorded and stored the reactions of the audience who called to comment in her archive. They are full of contempt for Kretschmer and imbued with adoration and support for her. One of the callers is convinced that «the plague» that struck Germany will soon pass, and their time will come again.
What betrayed her was not what she said or did but what she kept in her archives.
The line
Considering the worldwide rise of extremist political parties and ideologies, it seems this time has come now. Veiel’s film is not only about Riefenstahl but also about the ambiguity of the values that permeated her work and life and are part of the world today. Glorification of political leaders, the contempt for the weak and marginalised, the celebration of physical beauty and strength. It’s enough to think of the fear of the migrants and fascination with celebrities and sports to see that it’s not easy to draw a line. A bit like the desire to read the face and be able to «see through an individual» is a normal human desire, but concluding their character solely based on a selection of external features is part of the history of racial classifications. I think this is what Veiel’s documentary, after all the interviews, films, and books already written, revealed about Riefenstahl. Her insistence that she was only making art and not politics didn’t work, in the first place, because the celebration of the values intrinsic to nazi ideology was part of her appeal.
