Der heilige Berg

Director/Script: Arnold Fank, Cast: Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, Ernst Petersen.

Arnold Fank was known for "mountain films" during the German silent era. This is considered to be his most famous. This film is basically a mellow drama. It is the mountaineering, skiing and dancing that make this film so interesting to watch. It centers around this beautiful dancer named Diotima (played by Leni Riefenstahl) and two men that fall for her, a mountain climber named Karl (played by Luis Trenker)and a ski champ named Vigo (played by Ernst Petersen). Karl and Diotima develop a relationship, Karl leaves to go on a mountain climb. During this time she meets Vigo at a ski competition and develops a friendship with him. Karl comes back from his expedition to find Diotima with Vigo and he become very jealous of Vigo. He offers to take him on a climb up the north face of a mountain during the time of the season when it is considered dangerous to do so because he wants to do harm to his friend. Vigo reluctantly offers to go because of the climbing conditions. Anyhow, they climb the mountain together, they get up on a high ledge and Karl pushes him off the ledge but ends up trying to save him because they are roped together. They are stuck up there for a long period of time in harsh conditions. At some point Vigo can't take hanging on the ledge any longer and asks Karl to cut the rope and save himself. Karl refuses to do this. I will not say what happens to them.

This film could be enjoyed by anyone who likes classic cinema and silent films and is a great film to have for anyone who is into skiing or mountaineering. The mountain photography is very good. The film is colour tinted mostly in blue and golden hues. Many of Leni's dancing scenes are shown with her silhouetted as are many of the climbing scenes with the colour tinted background. Their is a ski-jump competition scene that is very cool to watch. The ski race is also impressive and it takes up much of the film.

Leni Riefenstahl become a director in her own right. Evidently Hitler was impressed by her work and asked her to make Nazi propaganda films for him and she did. This all but ruined her career. I do not know if she actually shared those views but I have read that she regretted being associated with those films. She lived a long time, dieing just a few years ago. She made her last film just a year or two before she died.This was her first film in over forty years.

After a scene in Herr Wilhelm Prager's "Wege Zu Kraft Und Schönheit" (1925), "Der Heiliger Berg" was the first film of Dame Leni Riefenstahl as a lead actress. It was a film written exclusively for her by Herr Arnold Fanck according to Dame Riefenstahl memoirs, a book that includes other partial and conceited memories… from a time in the mid-20s when she was a famous dancer.

The film includes a prologue in where we can see Dame Riefenstahl dancing or something like that, well… knowing that Germans, even the aristocrats, had a particular sense of rhythm more suited to military parades with plenty of goose steps, you will be able to understand the reason why Dame Riefenstahl was a famous dancer during the Weimar era.

Herr Arnold Fanck, as a director was noted as the creator of one of the most successful and peculiar German film genres: the mountain films. (Actually, Herr Fanck was a famous director at that time thanks to mountain documentaries; "Der Heilige Berg" was his first film that includes a plot). In these films nature and its consequences are always centred on the lead character of these beautiful films with their superb cinematography and vigorous editing. Men and women have to fight against the savage elements in what it is finally an unequal and difficult battle. That's the most important aspect of the film, those incredible beautiful nature shots because Dame Riefenstahl as a dancer/actress or Herr Trenker (the male lead actor) as an actor are not very impressive, or…in the strict German sense, they are depressive.

"Der Heilige Berg" shows different nature's conditions and contradictions. In the first part of the film, our heroine, Diotima the dancer, is immersed in bucolic, idealized and calm mountain landscapes full of flowers, shepherds, people skiing and all that kind of strange things. In the second part of the film the beautiful mountain landscapes will transform to a dangerous and inaccessible place in which the snowfalls and avalanches will prevent the rescue of two of Diotima's lovers who are isolated at the mountaintops. In many occasions during the film, some scenes are prolonged unnecessarily due to the excessive emphasis on mountain scenery that Herr Fanck wanted; duplicate shots diminish the film's action in a Herr Trenker oeuvre whose inner intention is to be a tribute to nature and the Teutonic mountains.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must to climb the aristocratic ladder.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

If you have never experienced the 1920's German genre of the mountain film, there is no better introduction than this. In fact it may be the only one you need unless you truly love the genre as most of the films are carbon copies of each other. What gives this film added interest is the debut of Leni Riefenstahl as a performer (and occasional director).

Riefenstahl began her career as a dancer in the Isadora Duncan mold until a knee injury ended her career. Nevertheless she does a fair amount of dancing in this film especially in the beginning. While it may look somewhat silly today and Riefenstahl is far from the prototype of today's dancers, it is an excellent example of what Duncan's free form dancing was like and some of it is remarkably effective. Director Arnold Fanck wrote the screenplay in three days after being given a photo of Riefenstahl by co-star Louis Trenker and so began her brilliant and highly controversial career.

The story (standard for this kind of film) is the classic love triangle with a lot of German mysticism about Man and Nature thrown in to give it "depth". The real star of the film is the stunning cinematography by Hans Schneeberger (how appropriate) and Sepp Allgeier. There are incredible shots of breathtaking beauty of mountain crags and vistas taken in what seem like impossible positions for a cameraman. The actors were really there and labored under the harsh conditions as recalled by Riefenstahl in a clip from a documentary which is also included (although professional climbers were used in the more harrowing sequences).

I found myself engrossed by the obvious sincerity of the film despite the shallowness of the storyline. The print is in fairly good shape with the proper tinting restored which enhances the mountain scenes. The new musical score by Aljoscha Zimmerman strikes just the right balance between Classical and New Age depending on what the story requires. While certainly not a film that will appeal to everyone, it is worth seeing for the astonishing photography and for the young Riefenstahl who is radiant in her film debut..For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Some superb cinematography is the only thing that saves this fairly turgid melodrama from being completely ordinary. Given the stunning scenery featured here it would be difficult for even the most workmanlike of cinematographers to come away without some spectacular shots, but in the hands of a veritable army of credited cinematographers we are left with a succession of images that will remain in the memory long after other details of the film have been forgotten.

Leni Riefenstahl, who would later become notorious for directing Nazi propaganda films for Hitler, plays the heroine, a dancer who falls in love with a dashing skier. The skier's young friend, also dashing but in a less mature way, also falls for her and both men mistakenly believe the young man's love is reciprocated – a misunderstanding that leads to tragedy.

When she's called upon to emote, Riefenstahl overacts horrendously, flinging her arms into the air, half-swooning against any nearby piece of furniture or wall, and hysterically biting her hands when she's not throwing her head into them. She really is shocking and, given everyone else's more naturalistic style, she ends up coming across as a highly-strung diva who's misplaced her happy pills, which I don't believe is what the director is looking for.

Anyway, it's nature, and not Riefenstahl, who is the real star. The film heavily symbolises the links her character (the sea) and her lover (the stone) share with nature, scenes of which the camera seems to gorge itself on, suggesting a reverence that lends the most natural of phenomenon an almost mythical quality. The director juxtaposes the vast open spaces of the mountains and the sea with extreme close-ups of the principal's faces to offer an insight into their emotions and emphasise the disparities that will drive them apart.

And if you happen to catch this film, bear in mind – as the film beseeches you to – that there is no trick photography in use here: that man really is peering over the edge of a sheer cliff with the front of his skis in mid-air, and the cameraman really is hurtling down the ski-slopes with his subjects as he captures how it feels to take part in a rugged ski race. Forget the dreary romance, these scenes – and the breathtaking shots in which we see climbers pinned to mountains at the far left of the picture and silhouetted against a vast sky - are the moments that breathe life into this film.

The dancer Diotima (Leni Riefenstahl) meets the engineer and skier Karl (Luis Trenker) in his cottage in the mountains and they fall in love for each other and have a love affair. When Karl's young friend Vigo (Ernst Petersen) meets the dancer after a presentation and she gives her scarf with a smile to him, the infatuated Vigo mistakenly believes she is in love with him. Karl sees Diotima innocently caressing Vigo and he believes that Diotima is betraying him with his friend. Karl decides to commit suicide and invites Vigo to climb the dreadful Santo Mountain North face during the winter thaw with him. His best friend joins Karl in a tragic journey.

"Der Heilige Berg" is a melodramatic and tragic story of a triangle of love among a dancer that loves the sea; a skilled skier and engineer that loves the rock; and his young friend that loves the dancer. The plot is absolutely naive in 2010, but after all this is a 1926 film when the society had other moral concepts. The infamous Leni Riefenstahl, who directed the Third Reich's propaganda for Hitler one decade later, performs the dancer and pivot of the tragedy. Her dance is weird and clumsy but this is a silent movie and the viewer never knows what she was listening while dancing. If the romance is not interesting in the present days, the cinematography and the camera work are stunning considering the size, weight and technical resources of the equipment in this period. All shots outdoor were actually made in the mountains, including the ski race and the scene on the cliff, in the most beautiful parts of the Alps over the course of one and half years. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Montanha Sagrada" ("The Holy Mountain")