The Holy Mountain (1926)

"Among us, the greatest attribute... is loyalty."

There aren't too many films which can claim to have started an entire sub-genre of cinema. Dr. Arnold Fanck's The Holy Mountain, made in 1926, started a unique and wholly German type of film - the Bergfilm (or 'Mountain Film'). Essentially, Bergfilme were films that were made in the stunning alpine scenery of Bavaria, aiming to capture on nitrate the grand nature of these epic, snowy landscapes.

Fanck, who held a PhD in geology, had a background in making documentary films in mountainous areas, beginning with The Wonders of Skiing (1919), a film which tapped into Germany's affinity with the sport which was then still in its early days, and the film became an instant success in the country. Fanck continued to make similar documentary films through the 1920s, including the first film to be shot at altitude in the mountains, but it was The Holy Mountain (Der heilige Berg) that was to be his first, and most successful, attempt at a dramatic film. This concession to a more conventional film was due to pressure exerted by the UFA, who were at the time the largest film company in Germany by some distance. A young dancer named Leni Riefenstahl had been inspired by Fanck's documentaries, and after bringing herself to the attention of the director he was impressed enough to write The Holy Mountain for her in order to provide her first film with a starring role.

Liefenstahl in the memorable opening image

Though this was Fanck's first film with a story, the story itself is extremely simple, and in itself wholly unoriginal. Even the first, almost pretentious  intertitle, "A Dramatic Poem with scenes from nature", sets the tone for the rest of the film - the story is there as a vehicle for the picturesque surroundings - certainly not the other way around. Riefenstahl plays Diotima, a dancer who performs to the inaudible song of nature - celebrating the sea and the beauty of nature. We then meet the two main male characters, both mountaineers, the unnamed 'The Friend' (Luis Trenker) and Vigo (Ernst Petersen). It's easy to see that Diotima represents the wild, untamed spirit of nature, while the two strong, powerful men represent the quiet, inscrutable mountains that provide such a memorable backdrop to the film. The Friend falls in love with Diotima at one of her performances, and pledges to go off and find the most beautiful mountain in order to have an appropriate place in which to propose to her. While The Friend is away on his quest, Diotima meets Vigo, who has been mountaineering with The Friend himself. Unaware of their relationship, Vigo is inspired by Diotima to great success in numerous alpine sporting events. Things take a dramatic turn when the two men attempt to scale the dangerous Santo north-face in winter.

The story is nothing unusual at all, and it's quite clear that Fanck was more concerned with capturing the beauty of the mountains on film than he was in telling the story of a typical love-triangle, so it should be no surprise that the story is the weakest element of the film. Similarly, the acting is below-average. Riefenstahl was an good dancer, and would go on to be a truly exceptional filmmaker, but it's clear from evidence in The Holy Mountain that she was certainly not a gifted actress. Many German silent films were not known for their subtleties, but Riefenstahl outrageously overacts every time she is required to show emotion. However, it would be unfair to place all of the blame for this at Riefenstahl's feet - after all, the best directors should be able to extract believable performances from the most average of actors - and considering this was Fanck's first film in which he was obliged to work with people as opposed to just nature, it's more than likely that he was still developing his own style of how to direct actors. He utilises a large number of close-ups of the actors' faces, which would normally be used to give the audience an insight into the character's emotions which would be impossible in a wide shot. But often the actors' faces are emotionless, and offer little insight into what they are thinking. It seems likely that this is used for effect in the opening shot, a closeup of Riefenstahl's face, and it works very well, but as the film goes on the irrelevant closeups begin to slow proceedings down in what is already a long, ambling film. These shots do work well in contrast to the long shots of the mountains and vivid, cloudy skies, but by showing so little emotion from the characters a lot of the soul of the story is sacrificed.

So the story in The Holy Mountain is weak and unoriginal, and the acting is uninspired and excessive. However, in spite of these not insignificant flaws, this is nevertheless a decent silent film, as the one element that really redeems it is the superb cinematography by Fanck. At the beginning of the film the audience is informed that no camera trickery is involved whatsoever in the film, so in shots where he is literally on the edge of the cliff, he really is that high, teetering on the edge. To help the audience to see just how high this is, Fanck crops the edges of the frame, to leave a narrow vertical strip of film down the centre of the frame, heightening the effect.
There is no shortage of breathtaking shots, and especially considering the size and weight of the cameras they were forced to use, this really is a considerable achievement. British cinematographer Herbert Ponting had been using cameras in harsh snowy landscapes as early as 1911, but Fanck was the first person to really see the potential of committing these epic mountainous scenes to film, and he was rewarded with considerable success as Germans flocked to the cinema to view panoramas that were previously impossible for the vast majority of people to ever see. The first half of the film, as the story ambles along, sees the camera move very little at all, but when Vigo starts his skiing and winter sports, things become far more dynamic, with the camera at one point following the skiers down the slope in a shot that must have been fiendishly difficult to achieve.

The Holy Mountain is a beautiful film, and probably the best example of the little-known genre of Bergfilm that exists today. It's also notable in providing Leni Riefenstahl with her first real on-screen role, and maintains its status as a curiosity if only to see that she wasn't actually a very good actress. She would go on to tremendous success in Germany and become the world's first major female filmmaker, but she would owe a debt to Fanck - certainly there are shots in Olympia (1938), the film documenting the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, in which the fast-cutting and extreme closeups are a continuation of the style Fanck conceived. In other films directed by Riefenstahl such as the technical masterpiece Triumph of the Will (1934) she filmed other expansive, breathtaking panoramas, though of a very different - and ultimately more sinister - nature. Though Riefenstahl was able to prove her innocence in the maelstrom surrounding the Nazis after World War II and maintain a career in photography, Fanck, who was a fully-fledged member of the National Socialist Party, was less fortunate. He was unable to secure funding for any further projects, and it was only towards the end of his life in the 1960s that he began to see his work re-assessed and see that with The Holy Mountain, far from being a curiosity regarding the acting turn from Leni Riefenstahl, he was a truly exceptional cinematographer in his own right.