Eureka! Classics

The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

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Specifications

  • Germany, 1993
  • directed by Ray Muller
  • 1.33:1
  • Dolby digital mono
  • colour, 188 minutes
  • Certificate: E (exempt)
  • Date Released: April 2003

Eureka! Classics | A spellbinding account of the woman best known as Hitler’s moviemaker and recently hailed by The New York Times as ”one of the greatest woman filmmakers ever.”

In this remarkable documentary, Leni Riefenstahl addresses her past for the first time on camera. While she never actually joined the Nazi Party, as the creator of the single most effective propaganda film ever made, Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl has spend much of her life trying to live down her association with the Third Reich. Her personal relationship with Hitler is still in question.

Feisty and charismatic at 91, Riefenstahl revisits the landmarks of her turbulent life – from her beginnings as a dare-devil actress in German “mountain films” to her direction of such stunning narratives as The Blue Light (1932) and Tiefland (1940s, released in 1954), to her infamous, brilliant documentaries Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) to her anthropological photographs of the now extinct Nuba tribes of Africa. The film brings out the story of Riefenstahl right up to her current passion – scuba diving and shooting films of exotic aquatic life.

Altogether, a riveting story that leaves the viewer in total awe of its controversial subject.

Reviewers Comments

”Absolutely mesmerizing”
—-Georgia Brown, Village Voice

”A vital artistic event! One of the year’s ten best”
—-Richard Corliss, Time

”Riefenstahl takes the breath away. An astonishing record, consistently fascinating…”
—-Vincent Canby, The New York Times

”Staggering. The most fascinating, weirdly engaging monster ever recorded on film.”
—- Joan Juliet Buck, Vogue

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