“North Face” marks the return of the German “mountain film,” a genre popularized by Arnold Fanck’s “The Sacred Mountain” (1927) and The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1928), both of which starred Leni Riefenstahl, who went on to direct, as well as star in The Blue Light (1932), a film that so endeared her to Adolf Hitler that he commissioned her to film “Triumph of the Will,” a record of the Sixth Nuremberg Party Congress.
The theme of man versus the mountain lent itself well to the Nazi propaganda machine, with the Aryan superman proving triumphant, not only against human opponents, but the forces of nature itself. In “North Face,” the German climbers are not as victorious as they might have been had they embraced the Nazi party and accepted the empowerment of their Fuehrer. Their weaknesses become apparent as they near the climax of their ascent, only to turn back out of the concern for the life of an Austrian competitor.
This somewhat factual story is told from the point of view of photo-journalist Luise Fellner (Johanna Wokalek), who is in love with Toni Kurz, one of the German climbers. By the film’s end, it is made explicitly clear that Fellner is anti-Nazi, although this is emphasized in humanistic, rather than political, terms. Subsequently, although the film operates under the cover of anti-Nazism, the themes and style are in accord with the ideals of Fascist art.
Those who can blind themselves to its pedigree should find “North Face” a worthy entertainment. The climbing sequences are excellent, each step filled with suspense and each vista one of chilling beauty. Wokalek, one of Europe’s most charismatic actresses, gives a performance of such empathetic concern for everything around her that we are completely drawn into her emotional vortex.
So many young German artists struggle with their political legacy and only succeed in being apologists, offering sentimental portraits of good-hearted Gestapo police who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Director Phillip Stölzl avoids that route, instead using the tools of Nazi propaganda to make a statement that ultimately contradicts its own aesthetic. Most of his previous film work was in the music video field, including Rammstein’s “Stripped,” which was thought to be Nazi propaganda and subsequently banned. Whatever Stölzl’s political sympathies, he has, with “North Face,” reclaimed the “mountain film” for Germany.
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