User reviews

If this film was never made, the current camera movements and angles we see today on television would probably never exist. Given unquestionable freedom, Leni Riefenstahl created a film which is bold in composition and visual aptitude. The motions of athleticism are caught beautifully, especially the diving sequence and the running sequences. While many will say Riefenstahl was a pro-Nazi film maker, one cannot deny the innovation she instilled in the art of film making. If you can take the near 4-hour running time and the fact there is no dialogue in the film, then experience this film for the power and breathtaking visuals, not the supposed pro-Nazi agenda.

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.

I watched this film in my International Cinema class, and it was quite interesting. The movie starts out rather oddly, with naked bathing men and about 8 dialogue-free minutes of various people working out. The best part of this film (for me) is near the end. It was the men's high-dive section. Leni set the camera up under the divers and, as they fall, they look as if they're flying. The viewer loses almost all sense of which way is down as they watch the diver tumbling/soaring through the air.

Another enjoyable part is the horse-riding section, which plays out similar to an ESPN blooper reel, with riders falling from their horses on difficult jumps. But in this film, it's much more gorgeous through the help of slow motion and fairly tight framing.

All in all, a well crafted documentary.

***warning: spoliers (of a sort)*** This is certainly the better of the two Olympia films, as others have noted, though some sequences are more interesting than others. Gymnastics gets its turn - not surprising, as Riefenstal trained as a gymnast - as do equestrian events, all-too- brief coverage of cycling, and a few too many yachts. This is the film with the diving, as others have noted, and it is not possible to overstate how brilliantly edited that sequence is.

That sequence, along with the gymnastics which open the film, is the heart of "Olympia"'s rather complex connection with Nazi ideology. Watch these sequences, and notice how the athletes' connection with the ground is removed. The extreme slow motion and rhythmic editing take this beyond a celebration of beauty; it is a celebration of transcendence, the creation of an image of man larger than the world. The diving sequence at the end disolves into an idealized vision of Speer's Cathedral of Light, and the film ends with clouds, flags, flame, and a ladder of lights that pierces the sky. Together with Windt's underrated score, this film is one of the best examples of German Romanticism ever created. That idealization and transcendence, the piercing of matter to get at the spirit behind it, *was* a component of Nazi ideology, and Riefenstahl, who was not a member of the party (and, to be fair, seems to have been repelled by the Nazi's racism) was a fellow Romantic.

Is it worth seeing today? Undoubtedly so, if only to see where modern sports coverage got its start. Think about those more complex connections, though.

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

This is an even more beautiful looking documentary than was the case with the first Riefenstahl 1936 Olympics documentary "Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker". Perhaps it's because this movie focuses more on the more gracious looking sports, than was the case in the first movie, which focused purely on the sports being played within the Olympic stadium. Or perhaps it's also because the Netherlands actually won some gold medals in this part ;). This movie mostly focuses on all of the other sport being played outside of the stadium, indoors and outdoors. Sports such as fencing, boxing, swimming, hockey and everything else you can expect during the Olympics. Most sports are still featured now days at the Olympics. It's of course great seeing all those rs and how they were being played back then in 1936. Some things (for the better) have really changed.

Because of the more wide diversity of sports, the documentary also seems like it's going faster as well. Basically every 5 minutes we get to see a completely different sport, being set also at a totally different location again. It also perhaps makes all more exciting to watch as well.

Just like "Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker" it's a beautifully shot documentary, that set the standards for future documentary making. Leni Riefenstahl was a real pioneer in documentary making, regardless of what you think of her motives. Many of the used techniques are now common to the filming of sports.

This movie also definitely feels less propaganda like than was still the case with "Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker". It still remains a weird sight though, seeing German officers helping out the athletes, as Olympic officials. This of course got very all well organized and planned out by Nazi authorities, which basically used the 1936 as one big piece of propaganda. At least it doesn't show as much of Hitler (actually no Hitler at all) and Nazi flag waving as was the case in the first part.

A great and important achievement in the filming of sport and documentary making in particular, from Leni Riefenstahl.

9/10

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For the most part, this is just a continuation of the first part of "Olympia"--a documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympics made by the notorious Leni Reifenstahl. Unlike her slobbering lover letter to Hitler in "Triumph of the Will", the "Olympia" films are NOT filled with German propaganda but are incredibly artistic films. They are filled with some of the best camera-work you'll ever see--and put more modern Olympic documentaries to shame in this regard. The films are gorgeous.

The film begins with a lot of nudity--just like "Part One". This time, it's full of naked men doing all sorts of outdoorsy things--swimming, lounging, running and hanging out in the sauna. While it was not intended, there sure seemed to be a strong homo-erotic quality about it. But I assume the real purpose was to show an idealized view of modern Germans--like they are descendants of the original Greek athletes. Regardless, it's a lot of naked blond men cavorting about...artistically.

Like "Part One", following this very artsy beginning, the rest of the film is a straight documentary showing the various Summer Olympic events. In all cases, the camera-work was brilliant. But the ones that REALLY struck me were the yachting scenes. How Riefenstahl and her crew did these shots is a mystery. I THINK they tagged along in boats and shot some of the scenes with a telephoto lens. Others, I suspect, were re-created for the film to give it added close-up realism. Regardless, the camera shots were amazing.

Unfortunately, however, like "Part One", the film got VERY dull because just showing event after event got tedious--especially since the viewers have no idea who any of these folks are and the events occurred 73 years ago. Of course it looked great and was supremely composed...but still kind of dull. My feeling is that if you are a film snob, cinemaniac or appreciate art films, watch this and the first installment. Others might just find it a tough viewing.

By the way--get a load of the gymnastic events. First, the participants were only men. Second, they all performed outdoors! Interesting how times have changed!

If Olympia 1 - Fest der Volker - was just a piece of documentation on the athletics of the 1936 Olympics, The 'Fest der Schönheit' is more than that, as it hails the human body and it's capabilities. Among other things, it shows us the preparation of the sportsmen and women, as well as gymnastics and horse-riding.

In a way I feel too much is said and thought about Riefenstahl's and Olympia's connection to Nazi propaganda. Although that link is more apparent than in it's first part, the Fest der Schönheit isn't as compelling or scary (after 70 years) as the Triumph of the Will... Maybe it's not as important either?

A beautifully made documentary with a story of it's own, but it's hard to judge Riefenstahl on just this movie. It really isn't as charged as a lot of people have in mind...

7/10.

"Olympia, Fest der Schönheit" is above all te sequel of the first episode "Fest der Völker" The structure is more or less the same. After an artistic beginning the movie becomes more or less an ordinary documentary where the Olympic disciplines are showed one after another.

Just as in the first episode the beginning is an ode to the (sometimes nude) athletic body. In "Fest der Völker" the inspiration for this was found in ancient Greece. In "Fest der Schönheid" the inspiration is found more northerly, a couple of athles relaxing in the sauna after a training.

After the beginning the film may be an ordinary documentary after today standards, but that does not detract from the fact that the film was very innovative in the year that it was released. Also in "Fest der Schönheit" there are innovative camera- angles, mostly in the swimming and rowing sections.

The most well known scenes, those about competition diving, are towards the end. They are aesthetically very pleasing. Those who have only seen these scenes probably holds the film in too high regard.

I can not speak for other versions for this is the one I saw. As you can see from the front cover that this film has been digitally remastered under the supervision of Leni Riefenstahl.

The film opens up with a film tribute to the history of Greece and the games. We get to see the names of the nations at the time that the torch passes through as it reached Berlin. A much more realistic torch than today's is running into the stadium with a few pauses to let everyone see just before the final dash to the Olympic torch at the stadium. It would be great to recapture this in the present day. Some of the tribute leads me to believe that our athletes are overly clothed for the sports.

It may be unique reasons that brought you to this point such as Leni or photography, or interest in history, or, or, or. But once the action starts you feel that you are there and get lost in the "who will win what and how." Even being aware of the outcome does not prepare you to "not bite your nails" as you watch each athlete barely besting the next until it is over too soon. I noticed that instead of placing medals over the winners, they used laurel wreaths.

Any way you cut it, this movie is worth watching.

Part 2 of Leni Riefenstahl's documentary on the 1936 Olympics shows no sign of fatigue as she takes up where she left off with the same energy and grace to be found in the first section. In the second section more emphasis is given to the physique of the athletes that Riefenstahl gracefully captures in a poetic slo-mo of divers and gymnasts among others while being equally adept at editing furiously paced bike rides and steeplechases. With its more restrained opening, placing more attention on the athlete than the fan and celebrating rather than reportage "Beauty" might outshine "Nations" slightly but neither shortchanges. A classic documentary with or without its other half.

Olympia Part I has the feel of a modern highlights film while Part II does not. Part II seems classier. Maybe it's a changed state of mind as I viewed the two parts a month apart. Perhaps it's because Part II has a greater variety of sports. Part I is all track and field while Part II contains esoteric sports such as sailing and the biathlon (or whatever the sport is called with all the running and shooting). Whatever it is, Part II is the better of the pair, although neither are something to get worked up over.

This is the second half of Leni Riefenstahl's coverage of the 1936 Olympics, beginning with young men running through the woods, then bathing together. Again, we are treated to unusual camera angles and an opportunity to see that which the seated spectators could not. It covers gymnastics, boat, horse and bicycle racing, fencing, pistols, boxing, football, field hockey, rowing, diving, pentathlon, decathlon (starring Glenn Morris, a future "Tarzan") and, of course, the joy of fans cheering on their heroes. A forerunner of the "politics of joy" movement in the USA nearly a century later, there was clearly much joy during the Great Depression in Germany. Well, maybe not for everyone....

Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl made a second part to her 1936 Olympics special. This seems to be more the leftover footage with the other sports not included in the first part. It starts with some behind the scenes and quickly transitions to the gymnastics competition. It is interesting to see it outdoors, but not the most exciting. Over at the sailing regatta, Hitler gets to watch from one of his warships. I've always thought that the sails should be the flags of the countries. Hasn't happened yet. A lot of the sports have a lot of the German military in the audience. That is the main difference from other Olympics specials.

The Olympics year 1936. While Hitler and his ministers were celebrating their triumphs in portraying Germany as a modern and cultured nation, the perfect place on the face of the earth, unknown to the rest of the world, the imminent destruction and the future of some 50-60 million or more people who would die in coming years either on the war-zone or be murdered by the Nazi regime in concentration camps had begun taking shape underneath the calm and bright surface of those celebrations. The anti-semitic signs were removed, the gypsies and homeless were sent to labor camps, the streets were cleaned and adorned with flowers and the facades of all the edifices and most homes were proudly making statements in the reds and whites with Swastikas or rings on them, people were dancing, welcoming guests from all over the world with open arms and warm hearts, beer was flowing freely.. Hitler's Germany was jubilant.

While men and women of great dexterity and determination were getting ready for the greatest performance of their life, not far from the Olympic stadium, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was being built. Leni Riefenstahl was getting ready with some 30+ cameras including underwater and underpit cameras to capture the grand symphony of this greatest sport event.

This is a part 2 of Olympia, a documentary that depicts the unequaled determination and strength of the men and women who partake in the various Olympic events. Once again, part 2 also captures and presents amazing shots taken at different unique angles, a quintessential of Leni that was rather unknown to the filmmaking back then, the motion synchronization, the superimposing images, the silhouettes, the slow motion of divers, the splash by swimmers, a jockey who almost gets trampled in the water, the tempo of the audience including the distraught of Hitler as America wins rowing and countries cheering their contestants, She was a creative genius and this is a work of a genius. Even today the aesthetics of this 1936 movie have remained unparalleled. Part 2 is actually in color.. A must see.

This is the one to watch, Riefenstahl's masterpiece. Das Blaue Licht is great but dares less. You know about Triumph; people being choreographed to embody a new identity, destructive and all that.

Olympia Part I had moments of beauty but it was constrained in key ways. It was constrained by Hitler being there. By nations parading and saluting. You could not fail to note that all of it, much more subtle than Triumph, in the end impressed as a show staged to promote a German image, much more subtle because the image was of normalcy and spontaneous celebration.

This is a different thing. You probably know that Riefenstahl was a dancer before making her transition to film, you can see her dance in one of her first films as an actress. All of her own films are about choreographed sculpted form, but this is the one most purely about cinematic dance and the body.

Eisenstein filmed active crowds in radical collision that creates a world (now his devices are every bit as commonplace as Riefenstahl's but in a different milieu). She films crowds as cheerful observers of vigor. Most of all, she films the body as the fulcrum of harmonious expression that seduces the camera that seduces us seeing and being affected by this. It doesn't matter if the world is changed, or maybe she trusted that it had a few years back, it only matters that the soul - theirs at the moment, ours cinematically - can brush against the heavens.

Each sport is a framework that dictates its own dance. Each dance is slightly different and calls for a different camera. The body is free but within confines of the sport. The camera is similarly free to draw its dynamic calligraphy within edges of the frame.

In the regatta for instance, white sails group and re-group in swanlike formations and contrast with sailors throwing their weight around the boats and pulling ropes. Cyclists and rowers pass one the other in horizontal forward-dashing and overlap. Boxers are locked in gristly tango. Horse-riders glide over mud as though skating inches above-ground. The gymnastics are all about eddy and suspension in mid-air. In the polo sequence, the dance is all between tracing the zigzag flow of the game and Kurosawa-like whip-pans of the riders smashing against vertical beams in the far background. Other sequences like swimming and football are less interesting.

Above all, of course, stand the celebrated divers. You can tell that Riefenstahl loved them (she counted an Olympic medalist diver among her lovers) by how imaginatively she filmed this bit and saving it for last. This notion is never more clear, of a camera that dances with and decides the weight of its partner. She achieves here pure weightlessness.

In light of this, the closing ceremony of fire and celestial light - now common tropes of Olympic shows - is on top of ludicrous simply redundant. Her explicit bits of Wagnerian worldview are the least interesting of her work, always were. Yes, Nazis must have been enormously pleased by her artistry of transcendent sensuality. It still looks dull-witted and overwrought.

On the flipside of that is her floating calligraphic eye that was unparalleled at this time.

Olympia 2 (1938)

**** (out of 4)

The second part of Riefenstahl's documents of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I enjoyed this "sequel" a little less than the first film but that's not to say this one here isn't among the greatest films out there. The brilliant cinematography and editing are still here but the focus on the sports is quite differently. The first film mainly focused on track and field but this one goes for a wider range of events including a cross country trip, which ends with the runners falling from exhaustion. Also on display are gymnastics, which contain perhaps the greatest visuals of either film and perhaps the greatest of any film. I've watched gymnastics on various sports channels including ESPN and after watching this movie all I can say is that these people really need to study what's on display here. It's rather amazing at how brilliant this stuff looks compared to today and especially all the slow-motion treats, which really capture and show how incredibly skilled these athletes are. Diving, swimming, decathlon, field hockey and shooting are also on display here. The incredible beauty of this film makes it seem like all the shots were rehearsed and even the action was staged but of course this isn't true and this here just makes the film shine even more. All the controversy that has surrounded Riefenstahl is certainly wanted but it's a shame that this takes away from her incredible gift as a director. I always say ones personal life shouldn't come between the art and here is another stunning example of that.

This is a fairly good companion piece to the first film. Even though it doesn't have the emotional impact of Jesse Owens exploits you did get to see some of the great performances that took place during "Hitler's Games". This film and the first film will always be remembered as two of the greatest sports documentaries every produced.