“She was simultaneously mentally ill and a run of the mill woman of her time”: Riefenstahl review

“For some things to be remembered other things must be forgotten,” we’re told in voiceover at the beginning of Riefenstahl, Andres Veiel’s riveting archival dive into the life of the titular pioneering propagandist of the Third Reich. An actor, filmmaker, and ardent Nazi who dubiously insisted that her passion for art rendered her clueless to politics, Leni Riefenstahl once even insisted in a televised interview that if she’d been commissioned by Roosevelt or Stalin to craft Triumph of the Will she would have agreed to do so. Which for a narcissistic sociopath forever focused on her own wellbeing above all else, is perhaps the one honest admission Hitler’s fave director makes in the entire film.

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.