Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Das blaue Licht" or "The Blue Light" is a German black-and-white film from over 80 years ago. Writer, director and lead actress is Leni Riefenstahl and this film is one of the main reasons that brought Riefenstahl the adoration of Adolf Hitler, who made her his number-1 propaganda documentary filmmaker for years to come. This one, however, was still made before the Nazi party came into power. Riefenstahl plays a woman, dishonored by society, who lives in the mountains. The men lover her though and several men go to the mountains because of her, where they die from falling in the rocky, rough landscape. However, when the main character, Junta, finally warms up to a man courting her, she is about to face the most severe form of betrayal.The reason is that this is not only a film about love and interhuman relationships, but also about trust and a huge treasure. I must say I liked the ending here. But I am not sure if it is worth waiting for 80 minutes as most of the scenes before aren't really that great or memorable. As solid as Riefenstahl's and Béla Balázs' work behind the camera is, I am not too sure if casting the filmmaker for the main character was a good choice here. She does not have the looks for being considered some sort of femme fatale. Then again, tastes differ, and were probably especially different that long ago. This is a sound film, but there is no color yet and this fact really hurts the film as you could expect with a color being included in the title even. As a whole, I do not recommend the movie. Simply not good enough.
chaos-rampant
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.
MartinHafer
This is an interesting film in that a sound version (in German with English subtitles) and a silent version on the same disk. Now this might seem weird today, but in the late 1920s and early 30s, many theaters were still not equipped for sound and studios made two parallel versions—one sound and one silent. I've seen this before with some other DVD releases and it's very nice that both versions were included. However, like so many of the films that were made in sound and silent versions, the sound version has mostly the same scenes with only a few sound scenes inserted—so it really plays much like the silent version—especially since the sound system they used seemed primitive and the sound seemed like it was tacked on later.The film stars the infamous Leni Riefenstahl—a woman far more famous the documentaries she directed than for the earlier films in which she starred. This is one of her earlier films when she was seen as one of Germany's preeminent actresses—and a woman whose speciality were films involving mountain climbing! I've seen about a dozen of her films and nearly ALL of them have mountains in them—and often lots and lots of ice and snow! It's an odd sort of genre but somehow Riefenstahl made it her own! Like these other films, the actress risks her life climbing about in the Alps (much of it barefooted or in sandals) and you have to respect her willingness to go all-out for this film.Riefenstahl plays Junta—a strange woman who loves climbing about in the moonlight—a task the men and boys of the alpine village cannot do. When they try, they fall to their deaths—and soon people of the town begin to talk about Junta as if she's bewitched or in league with the Devil. It doesn't help her case any that Junta is a weirdo and behaves in a rather eccentric manner. Later, when an outsider becomes fascinated with her and follows her on one of her mountain treks he learns a secret…a secret that will ultimately destroy the woman he has come to love.This film is clearly not an ordinary film. The plot is rather strange and fantastic—like a modern fairytale. The cinematography is luminous and quite beautiful (and almost like Ansel Adams pictures come to life). And, combined with the music, it's more a piece of art than a traditional film for mass consumption. If you can watch it and appreciate it on this level, then you'll no doubt enjoy this movie. If you aren't, then it will be very tough going—mostly because it is so strange and because it does not have a particularly conventional narrative.By the way, if you get a chance, see the amazing and very long documentary on Riefenstahl ("The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"). It not only talks about this film at length but gives you a lot of facts that will help you admire AND dislike this highly unusual woman—and put it all in context.
tophoca
Unlike the previous reviewer, I have an excellent print of "The Blue Light" that Leni Riefenstahl sent to me a few years ago. This is truly a magnificent film and along with "Tiefland" should be for what this great lady is remembered for. "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" are stunning documentaries but "The Blue Light" and "Tiefland" are outstanding movies and a tribute to the greatest female film director ever.
