The Blue Light (1934)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

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.

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.

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.

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.