kijii
Triumph of the Will is a filmmaker's masterpiece in almost every way— especially cinematography and symbolism. You are not likely to see one Aryan in this film without a happy and proud smile on his face. It was made that way, don't you see? It's very likely that every frame of this film was edited and then approved by Hitler, himself, for tone and content. I'm also quite sure that many scenes of the film were added after the Nuremberg Rally had finished. Most of the crowd scenes were, no doubt, taken in real time. But the little determined drummer (@ 41:50") and that overjoyed lady running--with the little blond girl in her arms--to give flowers to Hitler (@ 6:21) were probably staged. (Does anyone notice that the woman is just giving those flowers to a German soldier's arms as he is riding in a car? Those arms could have been anyone's.) And, what about those cutaway shots to those "bright young faces"? I'm sure that, during the last 80 years, this propaganda film has been deconstructed and analyzed many times, as the technology for such analysis has become available. It seems as though almost everything in the film could have been re-created after the actual rally. What does that leave us that we can trust—the flags and banners being marched into the rally?
Eric Stevenson
Well, what can you say about the most infamous person to ever exist in real life? It's hard to review a documentary, but I certainly can. Anyway, it was weird to have a documentary without narration. Then again, you know how those wacky Nazis were! Rudolf Hess was featured the most prominently next to Hitler. Hermann Goering seemed to only appear briefly at the end. Is it sad that I am so familiar with how the most famous Nazis work? The strangest thing might be that this movie does not contain a single anti-Semitic line. There are a few quotes where Hitler mentions the Germans being a superior race but even then, the term "Aryan" was never once used. Everyone now views this as an historical documentary, even though it obviously wasn't. Hitler has become such a staple of pop culture I recognize a lot of stock footage came from this movie.Photographs of him in general seemed to have originated from here. A lot of documentaries exaggerate or simply outright lie to their viewers. I guess I have to give the creators credit for being honest. There were segments showing a Nazi's name before a brief speech. I only seemed to recognize Alfred Rosenberg and Joseph Goebbels. Guess I DON'T know my Nazis that well. What's also weird is how you would think that the whole movie would just be one big speech or a series of speeches. There were a lot of times where there was no talking whatsoever. It was just showing young people training or people heiling Hitler in general.This was before World War II and the Holocaust so it might not be as historically significant as you would think. Of course, it's something every historian should look at just to have the best movie depiction of the real life Adolf Hitler. I guess modern documentaries that chronicle his atrocities are technically more entertaining, but this is great to watch in its raw form. Hitler has been depicted more times than any other historical figure, so he's practically become a myth in himself. It's all the more powerful to see him as his actual self.Some people might compare this to "Birth Of A Nation" in that it's a movie people are ashamed of but is still technically a great movie. I personally found this better than that. BOAN did in fact depict the Ku Klux Klan as suppressing blacks, but this did not show depiction of Nazis oppressing Jews or really anybody else. Now, it's really hard to compare fiction to real life, but obviously a documentary comes off as more authentic. Don't worry, you won't be supporting genocide by loving this. Perfect ****.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Triumph des Willens" or "Triumph of the Will" is a German black-and-white documentary film from 80 years ago. 1935 means this was done 2 years after the Nazis' rise to power, one year before the Olympic Games (fittingly the mentions of "peace" in this film) and 4 years before World War II. It documentary the Nazi Party rally 1934 in Nuremberg. We see great parades, we see significant speeches by all the big players from German politics at that time. Of course, this also includes Adolf Hitler, who we see in quite a few speeches, also the one that closes the ceremony.I must say it is a very absurd watch, sometimes even funny in an embarrassing way and it is hard to believe that people took this really seriously. But obviously they did and it's difficult to judge them as we have not lived during that era and have not lived through the hard times of World War I and the years afterward. It is your decision what approach to take to that film. If you see it from the perspective trying to find out about and understand history in 1930s Germany, this may be a rewarding experience. If not, you will probably disgusted by the despicable recordings, even if it is nowhere near the likes of "Jud Süß" obviously. It is propaganda, but not that hateful really.I do not agree with the decision to ban films like these. We need to keep them alive and watch them in order to understand history, even if it is about dark times. We need to be informed in order to make sure times like these won't repeat themselves again at some point in the future. Denial of the past is not the way to go. This is also why I give this film a thumbs up, a fairly high rating and recommend this one to people with an interest in global politics of the first half of the 20th century. If that description fits you, go check it out no matter where you come from.
