ElMaruecan82
Reviewing the first opus of Leni Riefenstahl's documentary epic "Olympia", titled "Festival of Nations", I remarked that its idealistic content reflected our unconscious hypocrisy.Indeed, we label a film as propaganda because it's supposedly meant to exalt the pride of belonging to a nation while this is exactly what any sporting event does today. If it's an exaltation of superiority of any sort, the movie, as a documentary, never hid the victories and never pretended Jesse Owens didn't win. The film wasn't propaganda, it just had the misfortune to be made for a regime that could use it in order to demonstrate the power of Germany as the host country, but not as a physically superior people, so one of the best alibis "Olympia" could come up with is that it never made the Nazis' point.But it made sport's point and I don't think there's another documentary that provided such a glorious recollection of various sporting events, we're just so carried away by understandable hostile sentiments conveyed by the film's historical context that we fail to appreciate it for what it is: a hymn to the beauty of sport. And if the first opus focused on competition, the second is more lighthearted, so to speak, focusing on the beauty period, the youthful magnificence of the human body in action. And it's only fitting that the art of motion picture could finally magnify and sublimate so many movements we take for granted. "Olympia" raises the awareness of the sport appeal and in many ways, can be regarded as the seminal 'sport' film.The film is full of the same slow motions that proved their efficiency in the first opus during the opening sequence, and the technique culminated at the defining diving event, where for the first time, the competition ceased to matter and sport wasn't a mean anymore, but an end, a way to express the inner potential of the body. Riefenstahl exhilarated the beauty of a male body in such a revolutionary way she literally invented the soft-core porn. As even the straightest of men can't look at Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps' bodies without a slight bit of envy and admiration, and maybe it took the eye of a female director to finally reconcile us with our homoerotic tendencies, like it took the Renaissance male painters and sculptors to deify the female body. The French title of "Olympia" is even more eloquent as it says "Gods of Stadium", an expression still referring to modern athletes.But things seem to have evolved on that matter: by the time the Olympic games stop, the Paralympics start, and this might be what dates the film, its focus on the good, healthy and able body. We should all be glad to live in a world that awards the strength and achievement of the human spirit and its triumph over the handicap. That said, cinema or documentary is all about sight and sound, and we can't pretend that the sight of a missing leg or arm is as pleasing to the eyes... without feeling a bit hypocritical. And those who praise the spirit of the Paralympics, do they watch the games? Do they know the athletes' names? Now, while "Festival of Beauty" is a hymn to strength and grace and physical ability, I'm not sure if it is outdated or modern by these standards. Have we really stopped to care about strength and beauty? It's funny how "Olympia" keeps on revealing human hypocrisy while we cast our stones at Riefenstahl. Let's face it, one of the appeal of sport is to provide us some beautiful sights, the beauty of the body and the harmony in the movements, and men have always sought beauty, harmony and strength in any form, and with such tools as Riefenstahl's camera and directing skills, cinema finally made it possible. Contrarily to the first opus, we don't see much of the politicians as they were not exactly physically appealing, Riefenstahl was obviously in love with sportspeople, whether for the muscular bodies or the voluptuous forms, and never had a camera been so in love with human physicality. Of course, she didn't invent the slow motion or the smash cut, she didn't invent the low angles or any of these creative tricks used in German expressionism, but she was the first director to use them for sport and now they became staples in sport filming.Watch any sports channel; any montage will borrow from Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia". She elevated sports to a status that would forever be connected with the camera. It's impossible to watch "Olympia" without connecting it to anything related to sports. Riefenstahl was the first to understand that the motion pictures wasn't just meant to tell fictional stories, it could simply be about pure and basic motion and only the magic and the power of camera could translate these basic movements into magnificent choreographs. Any sports film, TV show or documentary borrows from "Olympia", that's for the legacy.Now, concluding my two reviews of "Olympia", I'm not the devil's advocate, I just believe it is unfair to blame Riefenstahl for not having foreseen what non-German people couldn't predict as well. Not quite the same alibi as "Triumph of the Will" because foreigners, athletes and politicians were present and no one saw. Maybe the sight of these 'Gods of Stadium' blinded them… they didn't see it was just a truce, a silent truce before the storm starts with its streak of persecutions and invasions, maybe the whole world was fooled indeed. But the athletes played the game, played it fair, with honor and sincerity and by capturing their exploits, Riefenstahl set the new standards of the sport genre.So, contrarily to "Triumph of the Will", "Olympia" is one great film not just for the historical magnitude, but also for its aesthetic value and its cinematic influence. "Olympia" is a film any movie lover should admire.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
The 80-year-old, 90-minute "Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der Schönheit" or "Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty" is centenarian Leni Riefenstahl's sequel to "Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker" and this one here focuses more on beauty as the title already says. However, that did not keep Riefenstahl from adding sports such as rowing. Oh well, some may even find this beautiful from an aesthetic perspective. But seriously, stuff like high diving included here justifies the title, even if there are certainly better ways to categorize what is in the first film and what is in here. The choice that makes probably the most sense is that athletics were in the first film and everything else is in here, such as cycling, fencing, football and a lot more. And just like with the first, it is once again a fairly neutral documentary, no propaganda like some of the films Riefenstahl made before the Olympic Games of 1936. French, British and American winners are shown. And this film is also after Riefenstahl's acting career. She had been Hitler's favorite filmmaker for a while already when she made this film. I must say I enjoyed this sequel, but not as much as the first. The closing ceremony at the end of the first film seemed like decent closure to the subject, but yes there is another film. It runs roughly 30 minutes shorter than the first though. But I guess it is okay, justice done to the winners and competitors that weren't show in the first film. Overall, this is an inferior sequel as it maybe tries to include too many sports in too little runtime and lacks further elaboration on the champions and contests, something I really liked about the first. Nonetheless, this was a really good watch and I recommend checking it out. Also one of the most defining sports documentaries in history. Thumbs up.
wfgwilliams
This is basically part 2 of Leni Riefenstahl's coverage of the 1936 Olympic Games. It has a very different feel and approach in comparison to the first film and very easily stands on its own apart from that film.For one thing the propaganda in this film is very much less than in the first film. I spotted one swastika and I was looking for them. The political figures of the Third Reich, who make their presence obvious in the first film are absent in this one.Where the first film covered many of the traditional track and field events in the stadium of the Olympics, this one covers gymnastics and many non track and field events.Events covered include yacht races, rowing, a bicycle race, field hockey, soccer, the decathlon, some specifically military events, and men and women's diving. Additionally there are some equestrian events that I found particularly interesting.Most of the events are accompanied with on the scene commentary and followed by announcing or presenting the medal winners. The exception to this comes near the end with the men's diving competition. This is presented to music and edited so that it looks more like aerial ballet than a sporting event.I highly recommend this film.
Grand
Rarely -- perhaps never before or since -- has the sheer beauty of the human body and the joy in its perfection been as well captured as in in "Olympia, Festival of Beauty". Watching this is film is to capture some sense of what the Ancient Greeks meant when they discussed _arete_ -- the "virtue" of being "beautiful" in body and soul. The great Humanists of the Renaissance would have been honored to count Miss Riefenstahl among their number had they been able, by some miracle, to see this canvas of Beauty in motion. As art, this film ranks with the works of Michaelangelo, Donatello, Phidias, and others who have scaled the empyrean heights and seen Humanity looking back at them. Poignant is the dolorous thought that within a few years so many of these paragons of _arete_ would be killed in the War. It is no wonder that Joseph Goebbels was said to have disliked Riefenstahl -- while she (even in "Triumph of the Will") held a mirror to the beauty of humanity and its highest aspirations, he dredged up the most noxious evils of the soul and twisted them into images of fear & horror; while she emphasized unity and camaraderie, he stressed division & distrust in order to secure his own vile position under the Fuhrer whom they both viewed so differently. Miss Riefenstahl portrayed people of all races and nations at the most sublime pinnacle of their own perfection, while a few years later Walt Disney and the Warner Brothers gave us buck-toothed Japanese midgets and paunchy German robots as The Inhuman Enemy. Today, however, it is SHE who is reviled. The more things change ... the more they remain the same
