The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

If it weren't for her 1935 art film-cum-propaganda masterpiece Triumph of the Will, pioneering German filmmaker Riefenstahl's life might have been unequivocally wonderful. Instead, her acquaintance with Hitler boosted her career during the Third Reich -- and condemned her to decades of expiation for her seeming collaboration with the Nazis. In The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, a leisurely three-hour retrospective, director Ray Muller presses the 92-year-old Riefenstahl to explain herself, which she does, by turns defensive, rueful, rationalizing, and candid. Video is the ideal way to watch this thought-provoking film: You can stop to ponder Riefenstahl's arguments; you can rerun her artful film footage; and you can study the face of the self-absorbed, fallible woman up close, as if she were an unconventional great-aunt, paging through a photo album and recounting her life story. A-