L'enfer blanc du Piz Palu

Was not sure as to whether 1929's 'White Hell of Pitz Palu' would be my thing, as the subject is not one of the ones that would immediately appeal or be of significant interest to me. What got me to see it was my undying and long term love of classic film, being someone who has liked to loved other films that the directors and Leni Riefenstahl did. The positive reviews from trusted critics also fascinated me and were difficult to resist.

Although 'White Hell of Pitz Palu' won't be a personal favourite of mine any time soon, it was a very well done film in many ways. A very good film, nearly great even, with many brilliant things and few drawbacks, that is deserving of more credit. It is good to see most people here holding it in high regard and don't have much to add to what has been said very well already. 'White Hell of Pitz Palu' is not one of master director GW Pabst's best, but it is one of the best films of the not quite as influential Arnold Fanck. Riefenstahl is in a role that plays to her strengths.

Narratively 'White Hell of Pitz Palu' is very slight and thin under the surface. Meaning that there were for my tastes some dull slightly drawn out stretches, the film not grabbing me straightaway from a story perspective.

The character writing could have done with more meat, Maria is the exception to this but this is more down to Pabst's direction of Riefenstahl, he was unique in his direction of actresses and developing their strengths and that is obvious here. It is another story, in a good way, visually though when it comes to talking about being grabbed straightaway.

Because 'White Hell of Pitz Palu' is a visual triumph and looks breathtaking. The scenery captivates and is full of beauty and atmosphere. Enhanced by the perfectly framed and never static or overblown cinematography. The lighting also captures the mood perfectly. The direction is great from both directors, Pabst's is more distinctive for especially the seamlessness of the editing and the authenticity of the locations but Fanke's alpine footage is quite extraordinary and immediately recognisable.

It is a hauntingly scored film and the storytelling mostly has a lot of tension and one cares about the outcome. It does bring a lump to the throat. Riefenstahl is luminous and very commanding and affecting, one does care for her plight which was true for many of the films where Pabst was director or heavily involved in. Gustav Diesel is another standout, his character is not quite as interesting but the authority and intensity is present in his performance.

Concluding, very good and nearly great. 8/10

Other comments nicely point out the excellence of this film's mountain photography. That's why you should go watch it. Yet, before viewing it, i feared the plot and the film's perspective on humankind might be quite annoying. Gladly, this is not so.

Leni Riefenstahl has a rather doubtful reputation for acting Nazi propaganda films - but this film is quite free from patriotic or chauvinist sub tones. In fact, it is pleasing even from a modern feminist perspective, actively avoiding and rebuking gender clichés, which is quite astonishing in a piece of art dating from pre-WW2 times.

Many ancient mountain films, in particular German ones, praise heroic fight. On first sight, some people claim this one does so, too. On closer inspection, i don't think so any more. Granted, Dr. Krafft does act heroically - but it's completely obvious less obsession and more prudence from his part would have served everyone much better. Hans wants to be a hero - but for that very reason is proved the greatest fool. Maria, the least heroic of all the party and the most sensible, clearly leaves the best impression in the end. A film can hardly promote heroism by showing off its dumbness...

The film has its weak points, but naming these rather shows how good it actually is: The film's location is the Piz Palu north face. Yet, many scenes have been taken in the Piz Morteratsch south east face. So far, no problem - a north face has bad sunlight, but the film dwells on light. On top of that, turning a film in the Palu north face would have been suicidal. That ice wall is indeed extremely dangerous and quite famous for its icy avalanches. Yet, the faking of the location could have been better concealed in many scenes. Viewing a panorama in the background that simply cannot be seen from the location the foreground is meant to represent IS disturbing if you know the whereabouts. A few glitches are even worse: For probably technical reasons, when searching for climbers in the steep Palu north face, the film actually shows scans of a flat glacier basin (the Vadret Pers glacier tongue, as far as i remember). This gross inconsistency will annoy you even if you do not personally know the Bernina mountains.

The weakest point of the film are the subtitles. Clearly, they are meant to help understanding of the plot - remember this is a mute movie. A few of them are certainly required, but they are simply far too numerous, and many just rehash what is obvious from the fine pictures, anyway.

But hey, superfluous subtitles and faked locations - we ought to be glad not to find more serious defects to complain about...

In the 20's and 30's of the last century Arnold Fanck specialised in what we may call "Mountain films". In these films the mountains are characters of their own (they can be irritated and turn themselves against their climbers) but for the rest the films mostly lack full fledged stories. As such they resemble nature documentaries.

In "Die weisse Hölle vom Piz Palu" renowned director Georg Wilhelm Pabst was brought in to "repair" this lack of a plot.

My guess is that the scenes in the village and the mountan cabin are predominantly Pabst and the mountain scenes are predominantly Fanck. The mountain cabin scenes are about jealousy and rivalry (the man of a young couple senses that his fiancé is impressed by an experienced climber and wants to prove himself) The mountain scens are about heroism and self sacrifice when the three of them got into trouble in the mountains.

The self sacrifice is sometimes interpreted as having a hint of Nazi ideology (dying for your country). I wonder if this interpretation is influenced by the later career of Leni Riefenstahl, who in this film is "only" actress?

Apart from the story the beautiful images of the Fanck film are also there. They have been shot under difficult circumstances, the whole crew (from actors to cinematographers) being experienced moutaineers. I would like to call atention to the scene in which a rescue team with burining torches moves into the mountains and also to the scene in which the rescue team searches inside an ice crevasse.

If I were to use just one word to capture the experience of seeing this film, it would be ASTOUNDING! Films dealing with mountain climbing such as THE WHITE TOWER, THIRD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN or THE MOUNTAIN all pale in comparison with WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929).

There are two versions now available on DVD that are both worth seeing. Universal bought it for U.S. release and cut it from 133 minutes to a 79 minute length. This edition is offered by Grapevine Video (www.grapevinevideo.com)and was the first one that I viewed. With its source material being a 16mm reduction print the picture lacks somewhat, but in many ways this version plays much stronger then the 133 minute restored print offered by Kino.

Purchasing the Kino DVD I was pleased to see the stunning picture coming from a 35mm nitrate print. There were many fascinating scenes missing from Universal's release, but the film lacked the power of the shorter length. It is said that Universal used unused shots from this film for inclusion in several of their later sound films -- and that is not hard to believe. There are stunning shots all the way through the picture, but one gets the feeling that the makers were reluctant to trim any of their fascinating material.

I'd recommend purchasing both DVD's and watching the Grapevine release first. Then take a look at the uncut Kino version to see the wonder of the cinematography and enjoy the additional scenes.

I think you will find the dramatic power of the film is strengthened with the trimming. One might wish that Universal had left a bit more in their cut, but the film does work better with tightening.

At any rate this 1929 silent film contains excellent performances and astounding climbing shots, the likes of which I have never seen before!

As with other esoteric film traditions that have given us an aesthetic and coherent worldview that matters - Soviet montage, Japanese jidaigeki, film noir, the Nuberu Bagu, of course the American western - actually more than anything with these things that vigorously beat with the heart of a nation or society, we need to relocate ourselves as best we can to where the specific world emanates from.

In jidaigeki, for example, it is the double-bind between duty and human feeling that drives forward or tears the soul, but instead of becoming visible in confusion and chaos, and this is what's so important, it radiates in perfectly disciplined form. We need to be able to see how the submission is both social evil and spiritual practice.

Unlike all the above though, here we have an even more obscure type of genre gone in a matter of years, the berg- or mountain-film. Coming to it now, we may be simply inclined to marvel at a few mountain vistas, make a few concessions about the awe-inspiring courage of filming in freezing temperatures with the bulky equipment of the time, and move on to where a story is being told. Move maybe to Murnau if we want to stick in the vicinity, who was then at Hollywood orchestrating human destinies as city symphonies.

But this is a different beast from those city films, popular then in Berlin, Moscow, Vienna, where modern life was joyous motion, a coiled spring anxiously bristling with modernist energy ready for the leap forward; here life, though optimistic at first, young and happy, gradually it turns sombre, is taught humility through suffering, obeisance through the confrontation with the elemental forces from planes above. It comes out on the other end, older, less innocent, hardened, perhaps wiser.

One can see how these images - young, tireless men and women wishing to carve their destinies in rock, though finally succumbing to the decree above - could inspire agitprop for the Nazis; we know the tragic, bitter history of Leni Riefenstahl, both hers and the one she sculpted from bodies on film, and here she's the woman who reasons, yet also instigates, the passions between the men that cause the catastrophic events. She accompanies the disastrous journey, watches aghast from a little out of way, and returns mute with loss. It's a poignant foreshadowing of her own history.

The story is about a couple who arrives at the mountains to celebrate their marriage. They frolic in the snow. Life is so blissful, a champagne falls from the sky to wish the newlyweds. The first shadow in this snowed meadow is the apparition of a second man, the ghost of a man wandering the chasms that swallowed his girl.

The two men as one really; they have the same name, the young, reckless one informally called Hans, the older, now wiser with suffering called Johannes. So the journey is simultaneously about these two; the older man vicariously walking again with the woman he lost, hoping to prevent what he couldn't, the younger walking to prove himself worthy of the other, to prove perhaps that he won't lose where he did.

There are amazing shots of shadows rolling down the craggy snowed wilderness that presage disaster. Portents of doom abound in the mountains, crevasses whispering glacial secrets, snow spilling over the edges.

We encounter later this tradition in the films of Rossellini; the mountain in Stromboli as the summit of closeness with an absent god. But here, properly German, the mountain offers not even the space of the confessional; it remains to the end indomitable, the abode of inscrutable forces beyond the human sphere. It is merely the precipice where human destiny is halted; where it submits or perishes. But whereas in Picnic at Hanging Rock, a continuation of these films, human destiny vanishes completely from the precipice, here we know the man's resting place; entombed behind a sheet of ice, he is foolhardy yet immortalized in the way of a hero.

All else aside, you should see this for its aural qualities alone. Few filmmakers have evoked a better vastness; no doubt Herzog has seen this film numerous times.