The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl is without a doubt the greatest female filmmaker to ever live. However, to look at her as merely a woman filmmaker would be a mistake as the majority of female filmmakers are mediocre to say the least. When a film like Cheryl Dunye’s degenerate interracial dyke-fest The Watermelon Woman is regarded as an independent film masterpiece by film critics, it is obvious that people have to go out of their way to give female filmmakers the recognition they generally do not deserve. Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 film Triumph of the Will, despite being a ¾ of a century old, is a film of an incomparable aesthetic magnitude, set at a time and place that could never be duplicated. I can only assume that it has always been a little more than irritating for feminists and female filmmakers to realize that the greatest film directed by a woman is a National Socialist (Nazi) “propaganda” documentary. In the documentary The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl the viewer receives an incredible portrait of an 89 year old Leni Riefenstahl and her amazing career as the world’s greatest female filmmaker.

Beautiful

Athletic and Courageous

Despite being 89 years old, Leni Riefenstahl is fairly spunky and energetic in The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl. When annoyed by the inquiries and comments of the documentary director Ray Müller, Leni has no problem telling off a man that looks to be about half her age. In fact, Ms. Riefenstahl starts shaking Mr. Müller after she becomes annoyed by his questions in regards to the first Nazi documentary she worked on, a film that was never finished. Thankfully, Leni also has no problem discussing her acquaintances with the top National Socialists. Beyond elderly Leni becomes enraged when director Ray Müller mentions that in Nazi minister of propaganda’s Joseph Goebbels 1933 diary, Goebbels wrote about how Leni Riefenstahl would frequently visit the little doctor. Leni responds she never “put out” for poor Joey Goebbels, although Goebbels attempted many times to have her as his mistress. Leni Riefenstahl was a woman that could have any man she wanted and for some reason I doubt Mr. Goebbels would have been able to please Leni. After all, Leni’s later lifelong partner Horst Kettner was 40 years her junior. Leni Riefenstahl should also be recognized as being the queens of the cougars.

One of the biggest complaints thrown against Leni Riefenstahl is that she has a “fascist aesthetic.” Yep, you got it, some ugly weakling considers showing muscular, powerful, and beautiful bodies as evidence of visual fascism. To prove one truly has a cultural Marxist “equality aesthetic” they have to make films featuring the most hideous and deformed people in the world as everyone knows that should show a filmmakers commitment to the most important cultural achievement: DIVERSITY! Not only do critics claim that her National Socialist documentaries are “aesthetic fascism”, but they also claim her photos of the African Nubian people of central Sudan are further evidence of her criminal “aesthetic fascism.” I guess it just goes to show how ugly resentful NYC and LA film critics will make any type of pathetic attempt at discrediting the organic beauty right in front of their undeserving squinted eyes.

African Aesthetic Fascism

Throughout The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl I was very impressed with Leni’s uncompromising pride and attitude toward her long eclectic career. The only thing that annoyed me was her statement that she is unhappy that she ever made Triumph of the Will. Sure, the film may have blacklisted Leni Riefenstahl as a filmmaker for the rest of her life, but Triumph of the Will also happens to be one of the greatest achievements of cinema history. If your typical filmmaker were to even make one film anywhere near the quality of Triumph of the Will, they deserve lifelong recognition of as a cinematic master of aesthetics. It would have also been a nice “FUCK YOU” to her critics had Leni showed no regret in directing Triumph of the Will. Of course, I am sure Riefenstahl’s early German Mountain film career of Aryan volk mysticism is enough to repel the typical anti-European critic, a part of Leni’s career that she seems to have no regrets about.

Leni directing director Ray Müller

At around three hours in length, The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl is a long but certainly not banal documentary. The documentary is a portrait of a woman who became the greatest female filmmaker within a supposedly “misogynistic regime.” Despite the claimed sexism against women in National Socialist Germany, Leni Riefenstahl was a woman who excelled within those “misogynistic” social constraints. I can also certainly say that I have never heard of a feminist with even a drop of the talent and strength Leni Riefenstahl radiated. Of course, feminists are typically degenerate women and Leni Riefenstahl was an Aryan Superfrau.

-Ty E