Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl

Hitler in Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” (1935), a “documentary” largely staged. Credit: The Film Preserve

Uh huh…a major buzzkill. But, it happened. Uh huh…yeah. Translation not necessary. Only the stamped memory and awareness of what followed. The 4:43 trailer is all but enough to watch, but there’s nearly two hours more of it in the finished film, reflecting the near decade of real life horror. A cold look at history would show this is just another serving of humanity’s dark side, spanning nothing less than centuries more of equal atrocities. What do we do with that, then?

Triumph of the Will