Das blaue Licht
Tags: tragedy

Plot synopsis:
A soldier has been discharged from the king's service because of his wounds. The soldier leaves the castle and, as night falls, he requires somewhere to stay. Encountering the home of a witch, he asks her for lodging. The witch agrees on condition that he spade her garden the next day. This takes so long that he must stay another night, and in return she asks him to chop her wood. Once again, he must stay another night.
The following day, she requests that he go into a well and retrieve her blue light for her. He is in the process of doing so, but realizes he is being tricked and will be trapped in the well as soon as he gives it to her. He keeps the light for himself, not knowing what it is, but she leaves him in the well. He decides to smoke one last time and lights his pipe with the blue light. A dwarf comes to grant him whatever he wishes. He first asks to be led out of the well, then for the witch to be taken to jail and hanged.
The soldier is still upset about the king, so he asks that the dwarf bring the princess so he may sleep with her, just to anger the king. When she wakes up, the princess tells her mother of her strange "dream", which the queen believes could have actually happened. She has the princess fill her pocket with peas and put a little hole in it so that if she actually is carried away they will be able to follow the path.
The dwarf, however, notices, and spreads peas all over the city so that the peas lead to everywhere and cannot pin it on the soldier. The next night, she plans on hiding her shoe in the home to which she is taken. The dwarf warns against this to the soldier, but he does not heed it. The next day, the princess's shoe is found in his quarters and he is taken to jail. He sends his friend to get the blue light and as his final request asks for a last smoke of his pipe. The dwarf appears and kills the henchmen; the soldier also demands the king's life, but spares him after he begs for mercy. The soldier marries the princess and takes the throne.

Review: Leni Riefenstahl, soon to become notorious as Hitler's favorite director, made her directorial debut with this vivid and beautiful film.
It tells the tale of a mysterious blue light on top of a mountain that lures young men to their deaths.
Riefenstahl certainly knew how to film and light faces (including her own), a talent that would later enhance her propaganda films for the Nazis.
Leni Riefenstahl's directorial debut (she had been a widely recognised and praised dancer in the 20's and gone on to be one of the most well known silent movie stars, working with Arnold Fanck and G W Pabst on a series of mountain films).
Here she shows that magnificent eye exciting visuals probably attainted while shooting up in the mountains with Fanck, and which would go on to make Triumph of the Will the most stunning, famous propaganda film of all time, and Olympia, her film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics the single most famous (and incredible visually) sports documentary of all time.In The Blue Light you will find some of the most stunning visuals in early sound cinema, a gorgeous score and the magnetic, sensual screen presence of Leni herself in the lead role of Junta, the outcast who lives among the crystals in a mountain high above a fairytale village.
It is a delight to watch, and one of the great treasures of early sound cinema, in my opinion (though the best things in it have more in common with the dancelike visual grace of the silent screen, than the stagey, wordy early talkies from Hollywood)..
First off, I'd like to point out that the silent and "sound" versions are the same movie (same images from start to end), except that the intertitles have been removed from the "sound" version and voices dubbed in (sorta like what they did with Chaplin's The Gold Rush in 1942, except that here the conversion works fine instead of being hellishly awful).
`The Blue Light' tells the story of a small mining village lying in the shadow of an unusual mountain.
During every full moon a blue light issues from the peak, causing young men in the village to take leave of their senses and attempt to climb the mountain in the middle of the night.
This always ends in death for one of the village men.Junta, a young woman who lives in the hills outside the village, is the only person who has mastered the cliffs, and because of this she is an outcast.
One day a stranger arrives in the village, and this man becomes entranced not with the blue light but with Junta.
Eventually, he follows her up the peak and discovers the mountain's mystery, which Junta has so far kept to herself.
A minor catastrophe ensues, signaling simultaneously the doom of Junta and of the modern imagination.It seems uncomfortably ironic that the film was both directed by and stars--as Junta--Leni Riefenstahl, the woman who would later become known as `Hitler's filmmaker,' responsible for some of the most notorious Nazi propaganda films.
Nevertheless, `The Blue Light' remains a remarkable achievement for its operatic tone and imagery and for the brilliant mountain climbing sequences.
Junta's final scene is especially striking, ending in a sequence which blends compelling symbolism with poetic cinematography--a moment worthy of Jean Cocteau.In his autobiography, author Robert Aickman noted `The Blue Light' as his favorite film.
He called it a `fable of the post-machine world and of the nature of love.'  Elsewhere Aickman wrote: `Dr. Freud established that only a small part, perhaps one-tenth, of the human mental and emotional organisation is conscious.
Our main response to this discovery has been to reject the nine-tenths unconscious more completely and more systematically than before.'  Junta is one of those rare figures who is in tune with the enigmatic blue light of the unconscious self and open, as well, to that vital emotional reaction to natural beauty.
It is this that makes Junta worth more than a hundred villages filled with greedy mountain-tamers.
Perhaps it is no great mystery that a German film like `The Blue Light' should be made as Hitler gained power; insightful expressions of the human soul have always erupted in the most unlikely of times and with the dream thieves following close behind..
Visually stunning mountain film!!!.
`Das blaue Licht' (The Blue Light) tells the legend of Junta, a strange woman living in the Alpine heights above a Tyrolean village, who has privileged access to a cave of crystals.
On full-moon nights a blue light emanates from this secret grotto, luring young men from the valley to seek out the force of the radiant beam.
The towns-people arm themselves with tools and climb to the cave, plundering the valuable crystals and celebrating their new found fortune.Riefenstahl's film -(fantasy) sanctifies nature and reflects a fascination with beauty and harmony.
The photography of this picture is visually stunning, and Riefenstahl's masculine beauty and physical abilities make her the perfect choice for the role of Junta.
`Das blaue Licht' is one of the last great Weimar films and  a must  see' not only for movie buffs..
But beware of the silent version!This film was made in a sound and a silent version, as there were some theaters at the time that were still not equipped for sound.
There are superb quality short excerpts from the film in The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.Leni Riefenstahl passed away yesterday at the age of 101.
At the age of 100, she was still scuba diving!She may have been the greatest motion picture director of all time, but she was forbidden from making motion pictures for over half a century, an incalculable loss to the art of film.
I hope that they issue restored versions of her movies now, particularly my favorite, "The Blue Light", a fairy tale set in the Alps, a movie that she - a young girl then - wrote, directed, and starred in!Note: I previously posted part of this commentary a couple of years ago (see below), but it was posted as "Anonymous" for some reason..
Being a reflection of light and shadow it can never be the real thing of course, it is merely the mirror that holds the image - which is contrary to a lot of the myth that we have glorified around cinema as the thing in itself.
It's a pain in the ass to watch these, because you know the filmmaker doesn't mean what he sees.But sometimes, in capable hands, they reflect truly: meaning of course not that they portray the world truly, as it truly is, if we could ever get two people in the same room to agree on their experience of that room, but exactly by dint of being reflections cast from lights inside, and so like a dream is always true even as it is essentially unreal, or like the old tribal ceremonies around the world were from an outside perspective merely the primitive imitation of a scene from familiar life, but from inside the dance allowed the participant, exactly by the token of his willing submission in the shared soul, to sink himself in the level behind the familiar narrative and there purify himself with just the images; in just the same way film can penetrate beneath the dream or ceremony, by substituting for it, and purify with a glimpse of how images, life itself, are stirred into being.It is a real joy to be able to watch these films; what they offer is akin to the experience of ecstacy, introspection from outside the self.
Every fullmoon mysterious lights glint from the top and the men climb the rock to discover.
But there's a woman in all this, an outcast, a pariah exactly because she can freely venture where they can't, who knows the secret pathway.The mystery is of course simple, as the man who climbs her soul to discover in turn comes to know; crystals that reflect that same moonlight seen from below.
So the source of so much allure and sacrifice was merely the reflected light from the real thing that was plainly visible above their heads the whole time; and which they shied away from in fear as an evil portent of their own impotence and disaster.
Oh, eventually they're allowed to get their hands on the coveted treasure, which now as well as before reflects truly upon them.But the woman, Leni Riefenstahl, casts a longer shadow in all of this, whose soul the treasure is snatched from to satisfy the social good.
She illuminates deeper for this - twice herself in the film, as both actress and filmmaker - because we know now that she was surrounding herself with real darkness at the time.
Her face when she discovers the crystals plucked from her cave, a mask of so much anguish and heartbreak, and then imagine how many real nights she must have spent huddled behind that mask for the rest of her life following WWII.Of course for her, the character, it was always the beauty of the thing that stirred the heart.
Beauty that makes the body stir from sleep and by some intuitive pull is drawn to climb the steep rock - and the discovery of the path, no doubt, was also intuitive - for a fleeting glimpse of what?But of course emptiness in full bloom.
Wonderful bloom.I suggest you see this with the sound muted - it's poorly integrated inside the film - and music of your choice like you would watch a silent.
Anyone interested in film will find their way here, but I am supposing you need to steel yourself.You may come because you know what this woman invented in terms of composition of the interframe.
I place her above Eisenstein for both effect and importance.You may come because you are interested in how film can actually change instead of merely reflect the world.
It can, it does.Or you may simply come because you are fascinated by the woman, a dancer, celebrant of the body, an Arian ideal, sexually active for 75 years including with top Nazis.
And with some extraordinarily blunt acting.("Sir Arne's Treasure" of a dozen years earlier did all these things with natural skill, and they work.)But what you will get is some astonishing composition, even in this her very first film as director.
Every time she is set in the mountain, it is done with such lightness that we cannot avoid feeling visited by the supernatural.
More, it was accompanied by a parallel awe at the pull of the story, the story that I know ends badly and possibly always will, but we follow it.I suppose that a slight, a very slight adjustment in this woman's makeup would have made a profound difference for several billions of people, and I further suppose that had she been trained slightly differently in dance that adjustment, that introspection would have been implanted.
This film was made in a sound and a silent version, as there were some theaters at the time that were still not equipped for sound.
The sound version is a hauntingly beautiful film.
The sound version is a hauntingly beautiful film.
There are superb quality short excerpts from the film in The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl..
Unlike the previous reviewer, I have an excellent print of "The Blue Light" that Leni Riefenstahl sent to me a few years ago.
"Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" are stunning documentaries but "The Blue Light" and "Tiefland" are outstanding movies and a tribute to the greatest female film director ever..
This film has to be the answer.Here we have a genius of composition and visual rhythm, in her first attempt, which guesses everything that would come.What would this goddess (in several meanings) be thinking, when she embraced this adventure?
At the same time, we have a story about a "special" woman.
That's the prophecy, this story, written by Riefenstahl, which is a story even inside the film, a book with her photo on the cover!
This woman changed more than the history of cinema, she did more than to enlarge the possibilities of visual contemplation and, consequently, beauty concepts.
In this film we have her, linking the sacred mountain and the city, linking two worlds.
The woman, climbing the mountain, the power of contrast.
Junta, under the effect of the full moon, exhales sensuality, which works still today (when we are totally addicted to images that aim at sensuality).
Note how the sweater reveals the shoulder, a provocation no doubt, a desire to place the body at the centre, and to enhance Man in relation with Nature.In this metaphorical mythology, Germanic and Nordic, see how the symbols are materialized, and shot.
The composition of the shots of mountain climbing and specially, of Vigo getting into the sacred crystal area is genius, the set of a potential Valhala, and the expression of Junta as she finds out about the intrusion reveals everything.This film still obeys too much to the codes of silent film.
Anyway, the sound in this film is uncomfortably placed, and dialogue does little more than directly replace the inter titles of the silent.
Further to my previous comment, I have now purchased and watched the video and would like to say how disappointed I was to find that so much of the original film has been lost, e.g. the shot in which the moonlight catches the crystals in the cave and the blue light shines out from Monte Cristallo.
WARNING.....SLIGHT SPOILER!!!!Leni Riefenstahl is fantastic in this film, which she directed, wrote, and starred in.
This movie is generally considered to be a German 'mountain film', to which Refenstahl generally takes a great deal of influence from, though it came out significantly later than most of the films from that genre, such as `The White Hell of Piz Palu' (Die Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü) or `Storm Over Mont Blanc' (Stürme über dem Mont Blanc) both of which Riefenstahl herself starred in.This is a movie about nature and modern man's disrespect for it.
Vigo, an urban citizen who comes to a village in the mountains, meets Junta (Riefenstahl), an outcast believed by most of the villagers to be a witch.
Vigo discovers that Junta is the only person known to have climbed the mountain to the cave where a 'blue light' shines on every full moon.
The light, which is believed by the villagers to hypnotize young men, is blamed for the countless deaths of the villagers who attempt to climb the mountain only to fall to their deaths.
When Vigo discovers Junta and followers her to the cave, he realizes that the 'light' comes from millions of valuable jewels that lie in the walls of the mountain.
Although by this point Vigo has formed a romantic relationship with Junta, instead of keeping the jewels a secret and thus, sacred (as Junta does) he decides to tell the villagers, who rape the mountain of its riches and become wealthy.
The outcast Junta gets nothing, and is devastated because the light which once glimmered from the mountain is now gone.Vito is constantly portrayed as a `Goethe type'  - the 19th century archetype intellectual, and we know that he is used to symbolize the higher echelon of German society.
She is filmed much like an animal of sorts...wearing rags, hunched over, and constantly running from villagers who want to stone her to death.
Riefenstahl stars in and directs this artsy film.
This is an interesting film in that a sound version (in German with English subtitles) and a silent version on the same disk.
However, like so many of the films that were made in sound and silent versions, the sound version has mostly the same scenes with only a few sound scenes inserted—so it really plays much like the silent version—especially since the sound system they used seemed primitive and the sound seemed like it was tacked on later.The film stars the infamous Leni Riefenstahl—a woman far more famous the documentaries she directed than for the earlier films in which she starred.
This is one of her earlier films when she was seen as one of Germany's preeminent actresses—and a woman whose speciality were films involving mountain climbing!
I've seen about a dozen of her films and nearly ALL of them have mountains in them—and often lots and lots of ice and snow!
Like these other films, the actress risks her life climbing about in the Alps (much of it barefooted or in sandals) and you have to respect her willingness to go all-out for this film.Riefenstahl plays Junta—a strange woman who loves climbing about in the moonlight—a task the men and boys of the alpine village cannot do.
Later, when an outsider becomes fascinated with her and follows her on one of her mountain treks he learns a secreta secret that will ultimately destroy the woman he has come to love.This film is clearly not an ordinary film.
The cinematography is luminous and quite beautiful (and almost like Ansel Adams pictures come to life).
If you aren't, then it will be very tough going—mostly because it is so strange and because it does not have a particularly conventional narrative.By the way, if you get a chance, see the amazing and very long documentary on Riefenstahl ("The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl").
"Das blaue Licht" or "The Blue Light" is a German black-and-white film from over 80 years ago.
Writer, director and lead actress is Leni Riefenstahl and this film is one of the main reasons that brought Riefenstahl the adoration of Adolf Hitler, who made her his number-1 propaganda documentary filmmaker for years to come.
Riefenstahl plays a woman, dishonored by society, who lives in the mountains.
However, when the main character, Junta, finally warms up to a man courting her, she is about to face the most severe form of betrayal.The reason is that this is not only a film about love and interhuman relationships, but also about trust and a huge treasure.
As solid as Riefenstahl's and Béla Balázs' work behind the camera is, I am not too sure if casting the filmmaker for the main character was a good choice here.