Year: 1954
Director: Leni Riefenstahl
Country: Austria
Language: German
Leni Riefenstahl is an enigmatic and controversial figure in the world of Cinema. Unfortunately she is best known for her Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia, a documentary which highlights the Olympics in Hitler run Berlin. Before that period in time she was an actress who starred in a few popular Wiemar era mountain films. Lowlands is a film that was finished a decade after the war, perhaps showing her true feelings about fascism.
The film concerns a despicable Marquis (Bernhard Minetti) living in the Basque region of Spain. The man is thoroughly awful in every way. The peasants in his village are starving and their crops failing because he's taken all the water for his cattle. Yet, despite their resulting poverty, he demands payment of their yearly rent. He also has run up huge debts and plans on marrying the rich Mayor's daughter (who he doesn't love) to pay off the debts if he has to. But in the meantime, he treats her terribly and is just an all-around jerk.
Tiefland has quite a bit of history attached to it. Reifenstahl claims that the film was made because of her miserable time working with the Nazis. She claimed that she had no choice in regards to making her previous German propaganda films because if she refused she would have been sent to a concentration camps. Whether this claim is true or not is up for discussion as Riefenstahl has often lied to further her own career. When the allies defeated the Germans the director was detained for four years; the rolls of her film were stored carelessly. When she regained possession of the film she found no support to help its completion. Once she completed it herself nobody wanted to distribute a film by an ex-nazi, so it remained unseen for years.
Tiefland is one of cinema's greatest on-screen tragedies. It was filmed during WWII, under the watchful eyes of the Nazi administration, though perhaps they didn't fully understand what the film was about. Riefenstahl's film seems to be a grand statement against the evil of authoritarianism and a call for freedom of the common people from tyranny. There is no doubt that the unloving Marquis is a metaphor for the fuhrer himself. Like all Riefenstahl films, it is incredibly well made. There is great acting, wonderful cinematography and superb editing. However it can feel like a long film and it's pretty predictable.
In conclusion, Riefenstahl's Tiefland is not perfect, but it is remarkably beautiful. It is one of the director's under-appreciated films; always overlooked in favour of her shocking propaganda. Tiefland may be propaganda as well, but at least it's propaganda in favour of the oppressed. 3.5/5
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