[LEN-E] New Leni documentary on German TV and more

[Thomas Köhler]

Hi Jose and all,

sorry for this late reply, I was too busy the last days to write.
So now for a run-down on these two films: the new documentary, as I
expected, isn't particularly great or even important. It just follows her
biography and of course focusses on the Third Reich aspects, despite there
being some moments on the time before and after (including some VERY short
snippets from "Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit" und "Das Schicksal derer zu
Habsburg", but nothing that isn't already on Ron's site if I remember
correctly). We get new interviews with Leni biographers Trimborn and Kinkel,
Matthias Fanck, and sports journalist Harry Valerien (rather famous in
Germany), but they all have little new insights. Kinkel at least is careful
to give a considerate opinion of her Third Reich work. Most interesting
perhaps are the interviews with cameraman Hans Ertl, who must have been in
his nineties when the interviews were conducted. But he also only reminisces
for the most part on Leni's relationships to Trenker and Fanck. Otherwise,
as suspected, the usual highlighting of the massacre in Poland and the
gypsies in "Tiefland", and very little about the aesthetic quality of the
films themselves.A lot of the other material is taken from Ray Müller's
film, in addition.

Much better and genuinely interesting is the Von Plessen film, "Kopfjäger
von Borneo". Victor von  Plessen seems to have been a sort of wealthy
amateur ethnologist, and this is his second and last film (an earlier one,
made in 1933, was about Bali). The film arranges what is for the most part
documentary material into the re-telling of an ancient mythical love story
from Borneo, and thus we get a rather romanticized view of the life of those
people , but who cares if the images are as beautiful as those shot by
Richard Angst? Angst is in top form here, I'd say. Beautiful landscape
photography, intense face studies, and an overall dreamy atmosphere, great
scenes of the people performing ritual dances and so on. In its low-contrast
photography it is reminiscent in visual style to later Fanck films like "Die
Tochter des Samurai" and "Ein Robinson" , though of course the editing is
far less extravagant (which reminds me that at least parts of "Ein Robinson"
and even perhaps of "Das blaue Licht" might qualify for ethnographic
studies).
If you have seen Flaherty's "Moana" or Murnau's "Tabu": the Plessen film is
somewhat similar, although it never reaches the same artistic heights in my
view. But well worth seeing in any case.

Best
Thomas