What a waste of my time!!!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

How astonishing can it be to see how a fictional story can metaphorically translate the life of someone? Even more when it is that very person the one who invents the story of her destiny? This film has to be the answer.Here we have a genius of composition and visual rhythm, in her first attempt, which guesses everything that would come.What would this goddess (in several meanings) be thinking, when she embraced this adventure? Lenni was a student of the human body, and therefore, of her own. Student of the Hellenic harmonic dynamics, who understood the power of movement, applied to cinema. She understood it so well she would pay for her whole life for that. In this film she is, simultaneously, observer and observed object. She, the body, is one of the reasons for this film to be. At the same time, we have a story about a "special" woman. She is special because she has access to a secret, she knows a path. That secret has a geographical identity, there is a division between sacred and mundane, mountain and city. The preciousness, surrounded by an aura of inaccessibility, to reach it is a privilege of beauty, of commitment and in the end, of love. And Lenni is at the centre of that sacredness, and there at the moment when it breaks. And she is doomed to be rejected forever for keeping such a secret. That's Junta, as it is Lenni. That's the prophecy, this story, written by Riefenstahl, which is a story even inside the film, a book with her photo on the cover! This woman changed more than the history of cinema, she did more than to enlarge the possibilities of visual contemplation and, consequently, beauty concepts. In her coursed work (coursed because it is good!) she helped to change the face of the world, having her as the ambiguous element, always. In this film we have her, linking the sacred mountain and the city, linking two worlds. Now check the geography of the place. The mountain, the power of its various sequences, the strength of that geographical object. The woman, climbing the mountain, the power of contrast. Junta, under the effect of the full moon, exhales sensuality, which works still today (when we are totally addicted to images that aim at sensuality). It works because it's genuine, a woman who is more that it seems. Note how the sweater reveals the shoulder, a provocation no doubt, a desire to place the body at the centre, and to enhance Man in relation with Nature.In this metaphorical mythology, Germanic and Nordic, see how the symbols are materialized, and shot. The composition of the shots of mountain climbing and specially, of Vigo getting into the sacred crystal area is genius, the set of a potential Valhala, and the expression of Junta as she finds out about the intrusion reveals everything.This film still obeys too much to the codes of silent film. I saw the sound version, but apparently there is a silent one, since in those days the transition was still being made. Anyway, the sound in this film is uncomfortably placed, and dialogue does little more than directly replace the inter titles of the silent. And the montage still doesn't exist with the supreme sense that Lenni would give it, years later, and that affects rhythm, because the work of the montage masters (Eisenstein, Kalatzov, Vertov...) totally depends on the rhythm images themselves can give, for what happens inside every shot, and for the cut between shots. That dynamic does not exist here, and the codes are dated, and i suppose they might already be dated than. But Riefenstahl is body, face, she is expression. She is movement, dynamic, rhythm. But is all that both as an observer, sensitive and visual, and as an interpreter, sensual (sexual!) and intense. That's her genius, here.My opinion: 4/5 see this, several times.http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Unlike the previous reviewer, I have an excellent print of "The Blue Light" that Leni Riefenstahl sent to me a few years ago. This is truly a magnificent film and along with "Tiefland" should be for what this great lady is remembered for. "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" are stunning documentaries but "The Blue Light" and "Tiefland" are outstanding movies and a tribute to the greatest female film director ever.

WARNING.....SLIGHT SPOILER!!!!Leni Riefenstahl is fantastic in this film, which she directed, wrote, and starred in. This movie is generally considered to be a German 'mountain film', to which Refenstahl generally takes a great deal of influence from, though it came out significantly later than most of the films from that genre, such as `The White Hell of Piz Palu' (Die Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü) or `Storm Over Mont Blanc' (Stürme über dem Mont Blanc) both of which Riefenstahl herself starred in.This is a movie about nature and modern man's disrespect for it. Vigo, an urban citizen who comes to a village in the mountains, meets Junta (Riefenstahl), an outcast believed by most of the villagers to be a witch. Vigo discovers that Junta is the only person known to have climbed the mountain to the cave where a 'blue light' shines on every full moon. The light, which is believed by the villagers to hypnotize young men, is blamed for the countless deaths of the villagers who attempt to climb the mountain only to fall to their deaths. When Vigo discovers Junta and followers her to the cave, he realizes that the 'light' comes from millions of valuable jewels that lie in the walls of the mountain. Although by this point Vigo has formed a romantic relationship with Junta, instead of keeping the jewels a secret and thus, sacred (as Junta does) he decides to tell the villagers, who rape the mountain of its riches and become wealthy. The outcast Junta gets nothing, and is devastated because the light which once glimmered from the mountain is now gone.Vito is constantly portrayed as a `Goethe type' - the 19th century archetype intellectual, and we know that he is used to symbolize the higher echelon of German society. Junta, however, is an outcast and a social misfit. She is filmed much like an animal of sorts...wearing rags, hunched over, and constantly running from villagers who want to stone her to death. When Junta and Vito get together, it becomes obviously unnatural and awkward. The fact that Junta and Vito also do not speak the same language is paramount to the notion that communication between nature and high society does not exist. In the end, he uses her knowledge, and chooses financial wealth over love. This is a message (albeit a depressing one) to modern civilization everywhere, delivered with expressionistic flair and a filmatic brilliance that won't be found anywhere else.

Leni Riefenstahl, soon to become notorious as Hitler's favorite director, made her directorial debut with this vivid and beautiful film. It tells the tale of a mysterious blue light on top of a mountain that lures young men to their deaths. The only person who can reach it is a young outcast played by Riefenstahl herself. She is exquisitely beautiful - so much so that I am amazed Hollywood did not beckon.It's all a bit Freudian and far too slow at times, but the photography is so sublime that it doesn't matter. Black and White has seldom looked so beautiful and the use of light is magnificent. Riefenstahl certainly knew how to film and light faces (including her own), a talent that would later enhance her propaganda films for the Nazis. This film is more than an historical curiosity - it is quite a work of art.