La lumière bleue

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.

Film at its purest form for me is a space of contemplation. Being a reflection of light and shadow it can never be the real thing of course, it is merely the mirror that holds the image - which is contrary to a lot of the myth that we have glorified around cinema as the thing in itself. A lot of those images reach our eyes randomly reflected, haphazardly, or the mirror is pointed without care. It's a pain in the ass to watch these, because you know the filmmaker doesn't mean what he sees.

But sometimes, in capable hands, they reflect truly: meaning of course not that they portray the world truly, as it truly is, if we could ever get two people in the same room to agree on their experience of that room, but exactly by dint of being reflections cast from lights inside, and so like a dream is always true even as it is essentially unreal, or like the old tribal ceremonies around the world were from an outside perspective merely the primitive imitation of a scene from familiar life, but from inside the dance allowed the participant, exactly by the token of his willing submission in the shared soul, to sink himself in the level behind the familiar narrative and there purify himself with just the images; in just the same way film can penetrate beneath the dream or ceremony, by substituting for it, and purify with a glimpse of how images, life itself, are stirred into being.

It is a real joy to be able to watch these films; what they offer is akin to the experience of ecstacy, introspection from outside the self. But first we have to invest ourselves in them, and the film needs to operate from the center. What we get in turn is not just the image, this is important, but an image we understand is being mirrored, this is the perspective we're missing in real life. So not an aesthetic, but a way of seeing.

Look here. The story revolves around a small village at the foot of a mountain. Every fullmoon mysterious lights glint from the top and the men climb the rock to discover. Every time they fall from it - and are symbolically embodied inside the rock as small statues. But there's a woman in all this, an outcast, a pariah exactly because she can freely venture where they can't, who knows the secret pathway.

The mystery is of course simple, as the man who climbs her soul to discover in turn comes to know; crystals that reflect that same moonlight seen from below.

So the source of so much allure and sacrifice was merely the reflected light from the real thing that was plainly visible above their heads the whole time; and which they shied away from in fear as an evil portent of their own impotence and disaster. Oh, eventually they're allowed to get their hands on the coveted treasure, which now as well as before reflects truly upon them.

But the woman, Leni Riefenstahl, casts a longer shadow in all of this, whose soul the treasure is snatched from to satisfy the social good. She illuminates deeper for this - twice herself in the film, as both actress and filmmaker - because we know now that she was surrounding herself with real darkness at the time. Of course it was never a social good her treasures gave voice to, but rather something that just had to be deemed so because society collectively pulled that way.

Too many words. You just have to see how she arrays herself in this. Her face when she discovers the crystals plucked from her cave, a mask of so much anguish and heartbreak, and then imagine how many real nights she must have spent huddled behind that mask for the rest of her life following WWII.

Of course for her, the character, it was always the beauty of the thing that stirred the heart. But not a beauty such as you appreciate in an art gallery or read from a book. Beauty that makes the body stir from sleep and by some intuitive pull is drawn to climb the steep rock - and the discovery of the path, no doubt, was also intuitive - for a fleeting glimpse of what?

But of course emptiness in full bloom. Wonderful bloom.

I suggest you see this with the sound muted - it's poorly integrated inside the film - and music of your choice like you would watch a silent. It's a magical film of interior landscapes.

`Das blaue Licht' (The Blue Light) tells the legend of Junta, a strange woman living in the Alpine heights above a Tyrolean village, who has privileged access to a cave of crystals. On full-moon nights a blue light emanates from this secret grotto, luring young men from the valley to seek out the force of the radiant beam. Their quest invariably end in death and causes the towns-people to vilify junta. A painter from Vienna, Vigo, befriends the outcast woman. He becomes her protector and falls in love with her. Following her one blue-lit night, he discovers the way to the cave. He draws a map, thinking that the safe passage to the grotto will serve the best interest of both Junta and the villagers. The towns-people arm themselves with tools and climb to the cave, plundering the valuable crystals and celebrating their new found fortune.

Riefenstahl's film -(fantasy) sanctifies nature and reflects a fascination with beauty and harmony. The photography of this picture is visually stunning, and Riefenstahl's masculine beauty and physical abilities make her the perfect choice for the role of Junta. `Das blaue Licht' is one of the last great Weimar films and a ‘must see' not only for movie buffs.

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.

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.