Supelice Dreadfully Boring

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

OldAle1 Most famous now, certainly, for containing the first starring role from actress and dancer, later director Leni Riefenstahl, this was director Fanck's second "mountain film" and in late 20s Germany probably didn't really stand out amongst the many other examples, including Alfred Hitchcock's now-lost The Mountain Eagle released the same year. And Riefenstahl's performance isn't really enough of a reason to see the film unless one has a significant interest in her; she's not really that good, rather amateurish here, and her dancing though decent enough seems entirely of the pagan/ritualistic type and gets rather tedious after a while.It's an old story, too -- the love triangle, in this case a mistaken one as Diotima (Riefenstahl) falls instantly in love with mountaineer/ski instructor Karl (Luis Trenker, magnetic and giving far and away the best performance here) only to have his younger friend Vigo (Ernst Peterson) fall for her. Tragedy is the end result, but not before we get to see an awful lot of great mountain climbing, cross-country skiing, and ski jumping footage. It's the photography and action sequences that make the film worth a view, not the stilted storyline. Curiously the film seems to have a rather pagan, earthy attitude towards God and nature, only to have that disrupted in the final frame by a very Christian-seeming "FAITH".The Kino DVD is quite beautiful and alternates between bluish and sepia tinting, but I have to take issue with the music, apparently scored and performed specifically for the film by a small ensemble; it's nice enough on its own but doesn't fit the Teutonic grandeur or wildness to my ears...more of a Buster Keaton or silent western score, it seemed to me. My advice is to turn down the music and crank your own Wagner, Bruckner or perhaps best of all, Mahler.

joerg-33 the first thing i have to mention is the transfer of the film. usually physical film quality is not of primary importance to me - but if (as in this case) there are a disturbing number of frames missing, your viewing pleasure is seriously impaired. here barely one minute goes by that the continuity within the same shot doesn't jump. having said that - the transfer is somewhat recent, restored and licensed from the murnau-stiftung, so i guess it has to be the best version available (i own the eureka edition). now ... the film is certainly not a masterpiece, but the sports scenes still can excite. so can the mountain and nature photography, which is rather splendidly done (they didn't even shy away from pointing the camera straight into the sun - something one doesn't see too often in movies). and this was about all the good there is for me. starting with the awful German text plates - in which even the basics of human behavior (of the characters) are displayed as requiring superhuman efforts/emotions ... the subconscious prelude to war i guess. the English subtitles thankfully use much better language - quite elegant in that too. also there is no humor in the film. one might smile about the idiotic script every now and then (nowadays), but this was certainly no intention back when it was filmed. conclusion: if you like silent movies, winter sports and history it might be worth a look, but not much else is there to be found.

Bill-1035 A pioneering 'berg' film from the silent days of German cinema starring Leni Riefenstahl, later made famous or infamous as the documenter of Nazi Germany in 'Triumph of the Will' (the 34 Nuremburg rally) and 'Olympiad' (the 36 Olympics). This was her first acting film and she does a lot of dancing (quite good) and some over-acting, (quite bad) waving her arms in the air and rolling her eyes, taking her cue from Mae Marsh, no doubt.The eternal triangle story is so simple I still can't believe Fanck took 1¾ hours to tell it. However to give him his due a lot of the film is taken up by scenery shots some of which are quite spectacular. A downhill ski race is also a feature although Fanck clearly plays fast and loose with times and locations so don't expect anything to make a whole lot of sense during this section. If they had had continuity girls at that time this one would have been looking for another job in real short order.The climax of the film comes when 'The Mountaineer' sees his fiancée (Riefenstahl) being groped by some man. He is furious but in true public school style attempts to sublimate his anger in a daring mountain climb much like Riefenstahl sublimated her excessive emotion in a dance earlier in the film. (Quite clearly at the time violent exercise and a cold shower in the morning was thought to be a cure for everything.) Half way up they have stopped for a rest on a narrow ledge when a chance remark by Vigo, the companion, makes 'the mountaineer; realise that it was the guy he is now roped to who was groping his fiancée. He is so furious that forgetting the floor space is somewhat restricted he makes a threatening gesture towards Vigo who instinctively steps back and …..whoops! (An earlier comment on this site stated that he planned to murder Vigo but Fanck makes it clear that he did not, it was an accident.) An interesting comparison can be made between Fanck's movie and the recent mountaineering drama documentary 'Touching the Void' in which fact virtually duplicates the fiction of 'Holy Mountain'. Watching the two in close proximity is very illuminating for the ethos of both films. I think the earlier movie has the edge when it comes to cinematography despite the fact that fixed camera position is the rule though I expect in some of the locations even actors' movements must have been a problem. The shooting of the film itself was plagued by weather problems, ice kept melting, snow turned to slush and the whole project was nearly thrown out by UFA. This is not a great movie but, especially with the comparison with 'Touching the Void', it is a fascinating movie from a historical perspective as well as worth watching in its own right if you are a fan of silent movies.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre German filmmaker Arnold Fanck single-handedly invented an entire movie genre: the mountain film. This refers not to mountain-climbing movies in general, but to a specific type of movie in an Alpine setting. A 'mountain film' depicts the experiences of an athletic young Aryan man, high in the mountains, where he communes with nature and meets a beautiful blonde woman who somehow embodies both the Aryan physical ideal and the German countryside itself. Their relationship is erotic, yet has semi-mystical aspects bordering on a religious epiphany. The man learns much about himself. Sometimes (as happens here in 'Der Heilige Berg') a mountain film has two male protagonists, both athletic, who develop a rivalry over the blonde fraulein.Although Fanck invented and embodied the mountain-film genre, in the same way that Alfred Hitchcock defined the suspense film and Busby Berkeley defined the Depression-era musical, Fanck was by no means the only 'mountain-film' director. Movies in this genre have been made by directors as disparate as Hitchcock ('The Mountain Eagle') and Fred Zinnemann ('Five Days One Summer').'Der Heilige Berg' ('The Holy Mountain') features Louis Trenker as Karl, a downhill skier who loves a beautiful dancer named Diotina. (Played by Leni Riefenstahl, who is so sexy here that I can well believe that Hitler had the hots for her.) Alles ist wunderbar for Karl and his little schnitzel, until along comes the slightly younger and handsomer Vigo, played by Ernst Petersen. A triangle develops between these three. Karl decides to eliminate his rival, so with German cunning he invites Vigo to join him in a climb up the nearest Alp. At the top of the Alp, Karl pushes Vigo over a precipice... then he suddenly remembers that he and Vigo are roped together. Oops! This scene reminded me of the climax of Erich von Stroheim's 'Greed', in which one man kills another man in the middle of Death Valley, then discovers that he's handcuffed to the corpse. The difference is that in 'Greed' the two men became shackled together at the last moment, whereas (in this piece of krautwurst) Karl and Vigo were roped together before Karl gave Vigo the heave-ho, so his actions are extremely ludicrous.Anyway, in order to save himself, Karl must rescue the dangling Vigo, and the dangling plotline ... and in the process he makes a few self-discoveries.As is typical of an Arnold Fanck film, there are some exciting skiing sequences, and some splendid footage of a skiing competition. Leni Riefenstahl is photographed to excellent advantage, with some fine backlighting in her blonde hair while she flexes her gorgeous physique, but she overacts very badly here. I'll rate this movie 6 out of 10.