The Olympiad (1938) 205m
Leni Riefenstahl's film of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games is considered to be among the greatest documentaries ever made. It's important both as a historical document and as an example of film-making technique, but while the grandeur of the event and the film's mammoth running time do infuse it with an epic sense, modern-day audiences may find their attention wandering. Hitler and Goebbels saw the spectacle of the games as an opportunity to show off the new Reich, but neither were responsible for employing Riefenstahl, who had made the jingoistic Nazi rally film TRIUMPH OF THE WILL a couple of years earlier. Riefenstahl's attachment to the project, via an Olympic official, ensured that the film of the event would not escape being viewed as a propaganda piece in itself, although this seems arbitrary insofar as the Olympics are a hype vehicle for every participating country anyway. Riefenstahl, who had previously directed and acted in features, puts a creative spin on her document and utilizes different technological innovations. She embellishes the events without changing facts, but lays herself open to charges of pro-fascist imagery - the opening sequence, for example, depicts buffed, nude athletes flexing their muscles against dramatic skies and has obvious Aryan overtones. But if this is the case, why would she include so much footage of black athlete Jesse Owens winning event after event and debunking the Aryan supremacy myth right before Hitler's eyes? Riefenstahl has always claimed her life's work as being artistically motived, and it's at least easier to believe this in OLYMPIAD than it is in TRIUMPH. Notice that there wasn't any of this fuss when a group of directors similarly fetishized athletic bodies in the 1972 Olympics movie VISIONS OF EIGHT.
OLYMPIAD is split into two parts, 'The Festival of the People' and 'The Festival of Beauty'. Part one focuses on track and field while part two looks at other events outside the stadium - but there's only so much running and jumping a viewer can endure. By the time the film returns to pentathlon and decathlon events already covered in the first half, it starts getting tedious. OLYMPIAD doesn't start off too excitingly (watching people throwing shot and hammers isn't too exciting at the best of times) but picks up once the races start - visually these are more involving because at a glance we can tell who is winning at any moment throughout the event, even if we don't know who they are. You'd have to assume that Riefenstahl did the best job she could editing the 400,000 feet of film she'd retrieved from the 30 camera operators stationed around the Games, and there are some interesting moments to be found. For example, the 1500 meters is filmed in one continuous take (it's odd seeing the New Zealand victor accompanied by sieg heils from the crowd); we see a shot of Hitler looking deflated after a German relay runner drops the baton when victory appears imminent; Riefenstahl inserts shaky close-ups of hands and feet as a marathon runner is on the home stretch, projecting to us his physical and mental exhaustion; the horses on a steeplechase regularly dump their riders into a ditch and a pond; and in the film's famous closing montage, Riefenstahl makes high divers appear weightless by filming them at dizzying angles and variable speeds. It's also interesting to see how much has changed since the days of the 11th Olympics - the stadiums and uniforms aren't plastered with crass product logos, the winners are presented with wreaths instead of medals, and the sporting equipment is simpler (e.g. non-flexible vaulting poles). It's disquieting to see competitors on the shooting range firing at human-shaped targets when we know that World War II was only three years away. Couple that with the final images of the flags of all nations bowing slowly to the ground and the smoke from the extinguished Olympic flame rising into an ominous sky, and you'll see why its impossible to view OLYMPIAD nowadays without irony.
sburridge@hotmail.com
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews