Almost a year ago at this point, I took a look at part 1 of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia: a film documenting the one and only time the Olympic Games were hosted by Hitler's Reich. Aside from the sheer novelty of it being filmed in Nazi Germany, the movie is pretty typical and mostly just focuses on the events themselves, like any good Olympics film should. Riefenstahl employed various innovative camera techniques in order to make the movie as aesthetically pleasing as possible, such as putting cameras on balloons, boats, and even underwater. This second part of Olympia is quite similar to the first, in that it focuses on the sporting events themselves and makes no mention of one of national socialism's core beliefs: the white race being superior to all others. For viewers not familar with movies made in Germany from 1933 to 1945, it will probably surprise them to know the vast majority weren't racist in nature. Some of the events shown in this movie are a soccer match between Italy and Austria (Italy wins unsurprisingly), a horse race, a bike race, oarboat racing, and the Decathlon, which is characterized by events such as the discus, javelin throwing, and sprinting. Ironically, the Nazis were keen to use the Olympics as a showcase to the world that Germans were physically superior, but at the end of the decathlon, the top 3 athletes are all Americans. There's also quite a nice and memorable montage towards the end which shows people diving into a pool, which was probably symbolic as Leni was also a swimmer. You also take notice of the many, many times slow motion is put to great effect, since that always helps make things appear more dramatic. In between the events, we see the flags of the different countries participating, and Hitler is shown to be in the audience at one point. Apart from the footage of people competing in these various bicycle races, swimming contests, etc, there isn't a lot to say about the second part of Olympia. You would have to watch it for yourself to understand why it's quite an enjoyable movie, and this is coming from someone who really can't stand sports. It's just filmed in an exciting way and it gets the audience to care about the possible outcome, which I think is a testament to how talented of a filmmaker Riefenstahl was. Sadly, even after Germany was defeated, she could never seem to escape her dark past. She later said meeting with Hitler and being his favorite filmmaker was her biggest regret, since she knew people would always remember her as a nazi. They did. Her legacy hasn't changed, and to this day most people remember her as a propaganda maker, but Olympia deserves to be given attention because it is essentially the first true Olympics movie. I feel that good movies are hardly appreciated in their own time, and this one is no different. Leni was in America in Autumn 1938 to draw more attention to this film, but also around that time, Kristallnacht happened. Jewish owned stores across Germany were ransacked, burned, and had their windows smashed. Even though she had nothing to do with that, Riefenstahl was banished from the US and Olympia was quickly forgotten.
