Review of Triumph of the Will (1935) by Aaron C — 13 May 2011

If there's an element of tedium about this exercise in rabble-rousing, it's partly a result of the monomania it encounters and seeks to sustain, partly because, in form, it is no more than a sophisticated record of a party political conference - a version of the kind of footage that annually goes out live on BBC2 in the middle of the afternoon and makes everyone long for the bowls or snooker to come back on.

.. Riefenstahl gives her well-fed supporting players (Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich) a nice soundbite and a standing ovation, when any less enthusiastic director might cut away to shots of delegates snoozing in the back rows of a half-empty auditorium after a heavy session on the complimentary gluhwein and wienerschnitzel.

More compelling is what's going on outside, and the use of Nuremberg as a backdrop, which may well form the most conspicuous example of a political leader playing to his base. This Hitler, portrayed from the outset as a celestial figure, descends into an old town of quaint houses, cathedrals and waterways, reduced by the event to the standing of a grand proscenium arch - every flag hung upon it further evidence of the extent to which the German nation had been suckered.

Noting the banners lining the hall in his opening address, one senior Nazi insists "When their cloth rots, only then will people understand the greatness of our time." They were rotten all along, of course, but it would have required a perspective missing from Riefenstahl's film to see it; a failure by most objective standards, it nevertheless remains a warning from history, not least on what there is to be feared from large crowds: it started to happen here.