Triumph of the Will (1935)
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Triumph of the Will Movie Review
Triumph of the Will is a 1935 Nazi propaganda film directed by Leni Riefenstahl. It’s probably cinema history’s most notorious picture.
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“It is our will that this state shall endure for a thousand years.
We are happy to know that the future is ours entirely!“
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How do you separate art from the artist? How do you separate art and what that art depicts? Those are eternal questions that are to remain for many centuries for sure. Watching Triumph of the Will, I was appalled, angered, saddened and downright disturbed as this film is, more than the majority of the scariest horror films out there, pure evil and thus it is very difficult to sit through.
Now, some will jump in defense of Leni Riefenstahl for not having known any of Hitler’s goals and what was happening in her country later on, but I don’t buy it and I find her going unpunished hugely problematic to me. But that’s a whole argument that is not about this movie and when it comes to this film, she undeniably directed it with a lot of style and confidence. Unquestionably she was a great director.
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Triumph of the Will is simply stunningly shot not just in its crane shots, but also in its moving takes on the crowd gathering as well as the greatly employed use of close-ops. But above all else, polished is the word I want to use here. The film looks extremely polished for a 1935 picture, and I know that it was restored, but still the quality of the picture and the professionalism when it comes to its technical aspects remain marvelous and simply impressive.
The same should be said for the score which is excellent and the sound design too. The film both sounds and looks very modern and not at all as if it came from the thirties. Its ambitious scope is admirable. And I know that many would say that the film isn’t even a documentary and that it’s just a propaganda picture of this 1934 Nuremberg gathering that gets boring pretty soon, but to me it wasn’t boring as I knew I was watching something very important, and its editing is exceptional so I did not find it too slow or dull to sit through.
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But I did find it horrible to experience, absolutely atrocious and it has the power to make you very disturbed as well as to make you question how could any of this ever happen in real life and to examine World War II history and famous Nazis. And I personally have become bored with WWII stuff before this film and the fact that it made me research more about the war just goes to show how powerful it is as a horrible, but hugely effective propaganda piece.
The best part about this whole experience is knowing that all of these people would be dead pretty soon after this film was released. That was very satisfactory. The worst part is just hearing him speak, watching the marches and the gathering, and to me the absolute worst part of it was seeing the happy, simply joyous faces on the people from the crowds.
That in particular made me unsettled as I could not believe that so many regular people would stay in line for his ideas and cheer for him. And thus watching this meeting as it really happened and captured on screen is almost unbelievable that it exists and maybe it shouldn’t exist, but for those who have seen the film, it will prove valuable as a highly painful, but all too important history lesson and a time capsule.
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How could you possibly rate a monstrous film that is Triumph of the Will? That’s an all too futile task. But you can talk about it a lot as it truly does leave a very strong impression. Yes, it’s technically very polished, exceptionally edited, and superbly shot and directed, but that made it even more of a harrowing experience for me as it was downright disturbing seeing the real 1934 Nazi Party Congress as it really happened in Nuremberg and captured on screen so vividly for the future to witness. Listening to the speeches was atrocious enough, but seeing the joyous faces from the gathered crowd was even more horrifying. And thus this isn’t even a film for me, but a truly horrible moment in history captured on screen forever, and that created an important, but too real viewing experience.
