German actress Leni Riefenstahl appeared in a number of bergfilme, a genre known as mountain films. Her work with mountaineer director Arnold Fanck inspired her to direct her own film, March 1932's "The Blue Light." Riefenstahl's directorial debut shows the stunning mountains of Switzerland and Northern Italy while she created a fantasy world of mystery and breathtaking beauty within the typography.
"The Blue Light" was one of only two dramatic films Riefenstahl directed. Her name is familiar for students of cinematic history. The new leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, appreciated Leni's ability to capture wide images of breathtaking landscape, and felt she had the talent to document on the screen his new government's popularity with the German people. The dictator approached Riefenstahl and proposed her to handle a documentary he was planning in his head. The end result was one of cinema's most famous propaganda documentaries in movie history, 1935's "Triumph of the Will."
According to one modern-day reviewer, "The Blue Light" had all the earmarks of what Hitler's National Socialism government loved: the worship of Nature, the mystical union with the landscape, pagan pantheism, and the old-age custom of villagers' organic link with the land. Riefenstahl's love of nature is seen throughout her work, highlighted by "The Blue Light. " The natural elements portrayed in the movie predates her later passion for the Greenpeace movement she joined after World War Two. In "The Blue Light," she plays Junta, a young woman who lives in the mountains and has been, according to villagers, responsible for several young men's disappearances in pursuit of her in the deadly terrain. Junta has an affinity with a pile of magic crystals. When a visitor to the village, Vigo (Mathias Wieman), spots her, he falls in love. As time goes by, the two become close. While he's in the mountains he spies upon her with the crystals, where she's having a wee-old time. He sees an opportunity to cash in on those valuable crystal for her material good.
Riefenstahl's directorial debut met with a moderate return to her investment and earned the praise of many reviewers. "It's one of the most pictorially beautiful films of the year," wrote the film critic for The New York Sun. The New York Times was equally effusive in loving the movie. "A summary of the story gives no adequate idea of the beauty of the action and the remarkable camera work, especially in connection with the light effects," described its author.
Riefenstahl claims she received offers from Hollywood after a few studio executives saw her film. But she opted to stay in German to be with her boyfriend, not expecting the offer by the new German leader would change her life in unexpected ways.
