Das blaue Licht - Eine Berglegende aus den Dolomiten

First off, I'd like to point out that the silent and "sound" versions are the same movie (same images from start to end), except that the intertitles have been removed from the "sound" version and voices dubbed in (sorta like what they did with Chaplin's The Gold Rush in 1942, except that here the conversion works fine instead of being hellishly awful). The "sound" version has little background sound being mainly voices here and there - and there is little speaking anyway. More importantly though, on the DVD I rented, the picture quality of the silent version was atrocious while that of the "sound" version pristine. All that said this is a very simple and sweet fable, aspects of which reminded me of Picnic at Hanging Rock as well as some of Gus van Sant's latest movies. One of the best films from the early 30s.

Anyone interested in film will find their way here, but I am supposing you need to steel yourself.

You may come because you know what this woman invented in terms of composition of the interframe. I place her above Eisenstein for both effect and importance.

You may come because you are interested in how film can actually change instead of merely reflect the world. It can, it does.

Or you may simply come because you are fascinated by the woman, a dancer, celebrant of the body, an Arian ideal, sexually active for 75 years including with top Nazis. Shunned by the film world, and finding a new challenge in underwater photography.

But when you come, you will confront a strange form of narrative, the spiritual metaphor, the Goethe model with blunt, plain cosmology. Its that used by Nazis extremely effectively and now appropriated by similar zealots. Extreme differentiation between good and evil: good fundamentally linked to spiritual forces which we do not deserve. Only severe dedication can allow us to deserve to adore it. Its all rather curious how superstitious structures can be sold, and you'll have to slog through it. And with some extraordinarily blunt acting.

("Sir Arne's Treasure" of a dozen years earlier did all these things with natural skill, and they work.)

But what you will get is some astonishing composition, even in this her very first film as director. A striking location that is almost unbelievable, but the most striking thing is her in the local. Every time she is set in the mountain, it is done with such lightness that we cannot avoid feeling visited by the supernatural. You have to see her climbing a vertical wall with bare hands and moccasins, thousands of feet up. You have to see her scrambling like a sprite around the bottom of the waterfall. You even have to see her present a sort of holy pulchritude while sleeping. This alone impresses once it settles that everything you see of her was designed by her. It weaves a fascination for a transcendent earth and womb that's genuine.

So my visit with this was a matter of awe at what a person can do, but I have that from elsewhere. More, it was accompanied by a parallel awe at the pull of the story, the story that I know ends badly and possibly always will, but we follow it.

I suppose that a slight, a very slight adjustment in this woman's makeup would have made a profound difference for several billions of people, and I further suppose that had she been trained slightly differently in dance that adjustment, that introspection would have been implanted. So if we had that fabled, magical time machine and wanted to go back in time to prevent the holocaust, perhaps killing Hitler isn't the right touchstone. It may be spending an evening in deep conversation with the man who loves the woman who taught Leni's dance teacher. Yes, that would do it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

`The Blue Light' tells the story of a small mining village lying in the shadow of an unusual mountain. During every full moon a blue light issues from the peak, causing young men in the village to take leave of their senses and attempt to climb the mountain in the middle of the night. This always ends in death for one of the village men.

Junta, a young woman who lives in the hills outside the village, is the only person who has mastered the cliffs, and because of this she is an outcast. One day a stranger arrives in the village, and this man becomes entranced not with the blue light but with Junta. Eventually, he follows her up the peak and discovers the mountain's mystery, which Junta has so far kept to herself. Unlike Junta, though, the stranger cannot keep a secret. A minor catastrophe ensues, signaling simultaneously the doom of Junta and of the modern imagination.

It seems uncomfortably ironic that the film was both directed by and stars--as Junta--Leni Riefenstahl, the woman who would later become known as `Hitler's filmmaker,' responsible for some of the most notorious Nazi propaganda films. Nevertheless, `The Blue Light' remains a remarkable achievement for its operatic tone and imagery and for the brilliant mountain climbing sequences. Junta's final scene is especially striking, ending in a sequence which blends compelling symbolism with poetic cinematography--a moment worthy of Jean Cocteau.

In his autobiography, author Robert Aickman noted `The Blue Light' as his favorite film. He called it a `fable of the post-machine world and of the nature of love.' Elsewhere Aickman wrote: `Dr. Freud established that only a small part, perhaps one-tenth, of the human mental and emotional organisation is conscious. Our main response to this discovery has been to reject the nine-tenths unconscious more completely and more systematically than before.' Junta is one of those rare figures who is in tune with the enigmatic blue light of the unconscious self and open, as well, to that vital emotional reaction to natural beauty. It is this that makes Junta worth more than a hundred villages filled with greedy mountain-tamers. Perhaps it is no great mystery that a German film like `The Blue Light' should be made as Hitler gained power; insightful expressions of the human soul have always erupted in the most unlikely of times and with the dream thieves following close behind.

Leni Riefenstahl filmed "Das blaue Licht" before becoming involved with the Nazis. She changed her story of how she worked on the film so often that today, it is extraordinarily difficult to cut through her web of lies and halftruths and to arrive at something that seems at least plausible. Fortunately, we have Hanno Loewy's work on 'Das Menschenbild des fanatischen Fatalisten, Oder: Leni Riefenstahl, Béla Balázs und Das Blaue Licht' (available on the server of Constance university). Three things seem beyond doubt. First, Riefenstahl's involvement in directing 'Das blaue Licht' was peripheral. The director was Béla Balázs. When the film was reissued in Nazi-Germany, Riefenstahl had him eliminated from the credits (a later re-issue in Austria in the 1950s mentioned him again, but only as an assistant). Second, in December 1933, Riefenstahl authorised Julius Streicher - the notorious antisemite and Gauleiter of Nuremberg - to deprive 'the Jew Béla Balacs' (sic!) of any income from the film he might in future claim. She must truly have been a nasty piece of work. Third, much of the cut of the film and at least part of the cinematography was done by her, and this is stunning. The way Riefenstahl photographed the Alpine scenery and the use she made of light and shadow and of mist and clouds are unsurpassed.

The plot is less exciting, though suggestive, and it evidently speaks to modern sensibilities concerned with the destruction of nature. The central element is the betrayal of a feral young girl (Junta, played by Riefenstahl, whom the villagers believe to be a witch) by a painter visiting the Alps. The painter discovers the girl's secret (a cave full of cristals that give off a blue light when the moon is full), tells the villagers about this, and they destroy the cave for material gain. The symbolism is clear: this is a kind of rape both of nature and of the girl. No wonder she falls to her death after having discovered what happened.

I am not convinced of the idea that it was the way the film depicts village life that made it attractive to the Nazis. The villagers are not upstanding Germanic types that conform to the national-socialist 'blood-and-soil' ideal; rather, they are the villains: narrow-minded and out for profit in a perfectly capitalist way. Also, the one positive figure in 'Das blaue Licht' - the girl Junta - does not even speak German but only Italian, and she is betrayed by a German. What helped Riefenstahl's career in the Third Reich was the fact that the film demonstrated her talent for cinematography. Moreover, she was good-looking in the way the Nazis approved - no wonder Hitler liked her.

Leni Riefenstahl's directorial debut (she had been a widely recognised and praised dancer in the 20's and gone on to be one of the most well known silent movie stars, working with Arnold Fanck and G W Pabst on a series of mountain films). Here she shows that magnificent eye exciting visuals probably attainted while shooting up in the mountains with Fanck, and which would go on to make Triumph of the Will the most stunning, famous propaganda film of all time, and Olympia, her film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics the single most famous (and incredible visually) sports documentary of all time.

In The Blue Light you will find some of the most stunning visuals in early sound cinema, a gorgeous score and the magnetic, sensual screen presence of Leni herself in the lead role of Junta, the outcast who lives among the crystals in a mountain high above a fairytale village. It is a delight to watch, and one of the great treasures of early sound cinema, in my opinion (though the best things in it have more in common with the dancelike visual grace of the silent screen, than the stagey, wordy early talkies from Hollywood).