Review: Thriumph of the Will

Wow.

From the art and film standpoint, I can see why this film is often considered one of the best films. The cinematography is great and the techniques the director uses are perfectly executed. But then you remember the content and message of the film and it gives you chills down your spine.

It tries to seduce us into seeing the Nazi movement as not so bad. And then you have to slap yourself to come back to reality. It IS very effective as a propaganda piece, as it sells the political party as a gift of the gods, but this one is hard to judge without being completely objective. After all, as we all know, the Nazi party was far from a heavenly gift. Perhaps the exact opposite. Living here, today, and watching this was truly scary, but if you put yourself in the shoes of a german boy watching this...this would have been frikkin' inspiring to them. And that's the really scary part! They were geniuses for making and using this film...evil, evil geniuses.

While this is a great film to learn from when it comes to techniques and film language, it made me uncomfortable. That, and you can probably put your DVD player on 4x speed and see the whole thing like that. It DOES tend to drag on.

Question: As an artist, where do we draw the line? And on what set of morals should our work be judged?