1932 Leni Riefenstahl - "Das Blaue Licht" (visual highlights)

Riefenstahl is best known for her documentary films of nazi events "Triumph des Willens" (1935) and "Olympia" (1938). While the quality of these films is often praised, their attribution to nazi propaganda severely hindered her career opportunities after WWII, turning her into one of the more prominent cultural collaborators of the nazi regime who denied having known anything about its atrocities (she would even claim disgust of the use of "Triumph des Willens" as nazi propaganda).

With a technical know-how learned from mentor Arnold Fanck, and with several innovative ideas, Riefenstahl managed to create a small oeuvre of interesting movies. While the style and technique of her nazi documentaries may be more interesting and influential, the less tainted pictorial beauty of "Das Blaue Licht" may be easier to appreciate nowadays. Further complicating moral judgement of this movie in light of Riefenstahl's following productions, co-producer Harry S. Sokal and screenwriters Béla Balázs and Carl Mayer were Jewish, causing their names to be removed from the credits for a 1937 re-release.

Riefenstahl's more autonomous other works, appear to display a love for nature, landscapes and for other cultures: Alpine village people in "Das Blaue Licht", Roma in "Tiefland" (although true Roma from the nazi camps were used as extras playing Spanish peasants and Riefenstahl played the lead as a gypsy) and Nuba tribes in several photo books.

Her association with Hitler and the nazi's, combined with her denial of political interest, her collaboration and apparent idealization of Roma and Nuba people

"Das Blaue Licht" was among the first sound films to be filmed entirely on location and made use of a new Agfa film stock called R-Stock for some night scenes. When filming was done through a red filter, the sky would appear black.

The story shares more similarities with the 1930 German novel "Bergkristall" than with the familiar German legend "Das Blaue Licht" (as compiled by the brothers Grimm in 1810).

A mysterious light emanating from a mountain appears to have compelled several young village men, one by one, to climb towards it on nights when the moon is full, only to be found dead the next morning. Riefenstahl plays Junta, a girl living in the mountains, who is not much appreciated by the village people and suspected to be responsible for the deaths of the unfortunate mountain climbers.

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