Leni Riefenstahl's first film with director Arnold Fanck was Der heilige Berg, which he wrote especially for Leni, with her in mind to play the starring role. A tragic tale of love, misunderstanding and perilous danger in the mountains, unique to this film amongst all the Fanck films is the opportunity we are given to see Leni dancing in those early days, giving us a glimpse of her widely successful career before her entrance onto the silver screen. Notable as well is the dreamy 'hallucination' sequence with it's special effects and the giant ice-castle on the lake.
The film opens with a prelude, where we see Diotima [Leni Riefenstahl] alone by the shore of the ocean, performing her 'dance to the sea.' After the prelude, we are introduced to two mountain climbers, young Vigo [Ernst Petersen] and his older (unnamed) friend [Luis Trenker], who later go to see Diotima dance at the theater that evening. They both become entranced by — and infatuated with — her, and although the older man is too shy, Vigo doesn't hesitate to meet Diotima outside after her performance, offering her a flower from the corsage in his lapel. She innocently flirts back with him, giving him her scarf as a token as she drives away from the theater.
The next day, Diotima frolicks in the sunshine up in the mountains, where she happens upon the older man at a cabin. They speak of the beauty of the mountains, they go skiing together — and they fall in love.
Later that day, Vigo has entered a skiing competition. Diotima cheers him on, and when he wins, she congratulates him with her affections. Vigo's friend discovers them in this way, only seeing that Diotima is with another man, not realizing that it is his own friend, nor the merely playful intention of her flirtation with him. That afternoon, the older man challenges his younger friend to a dangerous climb up the mountain, and while resting on a precipice, the older friend laments over his forlorn love for Diotima. When he realizes that it was Vigo whom he had seen her with, a struggle ensues and Vigo is pushed over the ledge, but his friend catches the rope just in time to prevent Vigo from falling to his death — unfortunately, though, he has only the strength to hang on to his dangling friend, not to pull him up back to safety.
As the cold of night drags on, and the two friends remain stranded up in the mountains, back in the town Diotima gives another evening of dance at the theater, when suddenly her performance is interrupted with news of Vigo and his friend being lost in the mountains — where we, the audience, know they still remain, frozen in a mountain blizzard, with one friend desperately hanging on to the other. Diotima sets off to find them, gets caught in an avalanche herself, but finally finds a cabin of men who form a rescue party. As Diotima waits back at the cabin, and with the rescue team still searching for the two climbers, we see that the older man has begun to hallucinate from his extreme ordeal, envisioning himself walking with his beloved Diotima in a frozen world with an enormous cathedral of ice.
1926, Silent with music, 118 minutes.
