"Der Sieg des Glaubens" or "Victory of the Faith" is Leni Riefenstahl's second directorial effort (after "Das blaue Licht") and her first documentary about the Reichsparteitage of the German Nazi Party. She was roughly 30 when she made this one here. It is basically a less refined and less popular "Triumph of the Will". Propaganda movies were still a really new thing and you could see how this one still lacked the qualities of Riefenstahl's later works. It is also not as "epic" somehow. I think these films are interesting documents of their time nonetheless in terms of the historical context. Yes the contents are despicable and demagogic, but these films are still a chance to learn about history and understand what was going on, as absurd as it may be. All in all, I thought this was nonetheless not a particularly interesting watch. The only good thing is that it only ran for roughly an hour, considerably shorter than "Triumph of the Will" and that's perfectly fine in my opinion.
Review of Der Sieg des Glaubens
