Andres Veiel's documentary Riefenstahl about the Nazi director fails to provide new insights

The film has not even really started and the verdict has already been passed. We see a scene from Leni Riefenstahl's directorial debut The Blue Light Das Blaue Licht from 1932: A young woman, the director herself, moves like a witch through the mountains in search of a mythical crystal. Images of Nazi parades are cut against this, Hitler in a victory pose, cheered by the masses. Old film strips hang as if ready for editing, then there are scenes from the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, which are burned deep into the visual memory thanks to Riefenstahl's brilliantly edited Olympic films. Finally, the sequence from a TV interview with Riefenstahl from the 1970s, where she is asked what she felt when she saw Hitler for the first time. "Magnetism!" she says.

Now, Leni Riefenstahl's involvement in the Nazi regime is no secret. There are countless films, documentaries and books about "Hitler's director" that shed light on her role in National Socialism and show her as an unscrupulous image manipulator who provided the Nazis with the appropriate heroic-Aryan propaganda cinema with dramatic camera angles and breathtaking image montages. After the war, the director became persona non grata in the German film business, and a controversial figure in public throughout her life. In later years, she was seen more frequently on talk shows, where her sometimes naive, sometimes cold-blooded statements caused a stir. Artistically, she had already taken new paths, photographing the life of the indigenous Nuba in Sudan and, at over 80, going on an underwater photo safari in the Indian Ocean.

When she died in 2003 at the age of 101 in her villa on Lake Starnberg, she left behind a huge private archive: film reels, diaries, manuscripts of unpublished books, fan mail, tape recordings, photo albums with Hitler and Goebbels at her side. Andres Veiel, award-winning director of films such as Black Box Germany and Beuys, has viewed a total of 700 boxes of material Black Box Deutschland und Beuys, for his new documentary film in order to paint a more nuanced picture of Leni Riefenstahl. Surprisingly, he didn't really gain any new insights. Perhaps because he wasn't able to take an unbiased look.

The documentary filmmaker circles around the archive material again and again, zooming in on stacks of handwritten texts, neatly labeled photo albums and film reels. He evidently didn't come across any real shockers. In the voiceover, Veiel explains that Riefenstahl probably cleaned up her estate just as much as her public image. She probably sorted out documents that could damage the legend of the apolitical artist. That may well be true. But why all the digging around in the estate if you generally distrust what you find? 

It seems as if all the research for this production was done with blinkers on. You can feel the grinding, rigid thinking, the fear of showing too much goodwill towards a Nazi icon. Especially now in these tense times, when right-wing movements are once again gaining so much support. That is understandable. But then perhaps the film should not have been made at all. Producer Sandra Maischberger had other plans. She arranged an exclusive documentary film deal with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which had inherited Riefenstahl's estate. And hired Veiel, who was probably overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material at first. 

For example, there is a passage from an unpublished manuscript for Riefenstahl's memoirs. In it, she describes in stark terms the violent excesses of her father, who brutally beat her as a little girl and then again as a 17-year-old. In another scene, she talks about her rape by propaganda minister Goebbels. Veiel takes up such details in the film, but at the same time suggests that they should not be seen as a Me Too excuse for Riefenstahl's subservience to the Führer. Her career from sweet dancing girl to tough director who directed 50 cameramen in the Olympic Stadium is unprecedented. And was certainly linked to blatant sexist experiences.

It is all the more unpleasant that Veiel does not stick to the facts, but constantly questions the credibility of his protagonist. And instead of serious analysis, he resorts to the lowest cliché drawer. In order to solve the riddle of Riefenstahl, he repeatedly shows portrait shots in superimposition: first a naive girl, a lascivious actress, a sporty mountain climber, a glamorous woman with a bob, then a domineering director, a Nazi bride and finally an old witch with fake curls and a distorted, red-painted mouth.

The documentary filmmaker gets the original sound recordings mainly from well-known interviews and earlier documentaries, such as Ray Müller's three-hour, worth seeing Riefenstahl portrait Die Macht der Bilder (The Power of Image) from 1993. Müller accompanied the then almost 90-year-old for months. Veiel only picks out from this material what fits the image of the ardent Nazi admirer and trivializer of National Socialism. For example, an argument in which Riefenstahl threatens to stop filming in front of the camera when the topic of discussion is her relationship with Hitler. Veiel's documentary fails to mention that she nevertheless allowed Müller to continue filming and that this and many other unflattering scenes can be seen in the finished film.

You don't have to have any understanding for Leni Riefenstahl's service and complicity in the Nazi era. Nor for the fact that she never really distanced herself from the old guard and always stubbornly insisted that she was only committed to her art. But you can still ask yourself whether the critical fixation on her person in the context of Nazi cinema has something to do with the fact that she is a woman - and an unyielding one at that. Just for comparison: Riefenstahl's acting colleague Heinz Rühmann, who was born like her in 1902 and later also lived on Lake Starnberg, made a career under the Nazis, was a friend of Goebbels, and even divorced his Jewish wife in 1938 so that he could continue to act in Nazi films. In post-war Germany, his acting career continued seamlessly. Instead of Quax, der Bruchpilot (1941) now he played the Hauptmann von Köpenick (1956). And in 1966 he was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. To date, there have been no inquisitorial documentaries about Rühmann.

Riefenstahl. Dokumentarfilm von Andres Veiel, 116 Minuten, Kinostart: 31. Oktober