The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993)

Running more than 3 hours, it took me a while to tackle this film, and to be honest it was interesting but often quite dry, so I nodded off a number of times over one late night and the next morning. However, watching it made me appreciate the exemplary career and technical skills of what some call the greatest woman film director ever (preceding and exceeding Orson Welles in techniques, logistics, and esthetics), even if she was at worst a Nazi sympathizer who agreed to produce three films for Hitler and the Nazi party, including Triumph of the Will, which won international awards before the war and is still considered the greatest propaganda film ever made. Leni is clearly a force of nature, as this documentary reveals through conversations and interviews filmed in all the locations significant to her career, interspersed with generous footage of her work, some of it never seen before in public. At age 90, she still speaks in great detail of every aspect of her film making, including the development of new camera and camera-mounting technologies for the 1936 Olympics that became standard for the profession. Most interesting, though, are her extensive responses to questions about how close she was to the Nazi agenda and leadership, and how she feels about her fall from grace over the intervening 50 years. The documentary lets us discern her psychology for ourselves, though giving her every benefit of the doubt, it seems inescapable to conclude that some denial as a defense mechanism is involved. This documentary is a must-see if you are interested in WWII (esp. German) history, cinematography, film directing, or exceptional women. Even at age 90, after fibbing at age 70 that she was 50 in order to get her certification, she is scuba diving to apply her techniques to filming underwater life. Certainly, this documentary could have been shorter, but given its peripatetic approach and this woman's 70-year career, I appreciated having the whole thing to watch. If you feel tepid about viewing the full length, the menu breaks her career into a series of chapters from which you may freely choose. Enjoy! 3.5 stars. (9-2-2016)