Review of Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

The Nibelungen is epic in origin, since it adapts a medieval poem. It uses the legendary and mythical suggestion of Middle Ages imagery . Like so many films that recreate medieval contexts (Lancelot du Lac by Bresson, Perceval le Gallois by Rohmer, The Name of the Rose), it features medieval spaces par excellence: forests , castles, fortifications, caves. Fritz Lang undertook a journey to the sources of Germanic national ¨epos¨ associated with the great legends that forged the spirit of that nation: heroes fighting against everything (dragons included), adventures in which the future depended not only on their heroic characters, but on their culture at large. Lang's way of telling it in 1924 was totally modern, and not at all literary, considering. The Nibelungen based its epic quality on rhythm, i.e. on a static cadence. Elements of photography / painting (image) and literary elements (rhythm) were combined to become pure cinema. The rhythm is slow and precise, that of typically Germanic gravity - a gravity that, far from introspective sobriety , is perhaps characteristic of the excessive, almost extravagant Wagnerian operas. We are exposed to a titanic duration, to a rhythm adequate for Titans, and to the transcendence of their relevant actions. Minimalism had no place here because it would hardly express whatever a great legendary story calls for: ¨Epos¨ is the name of the game, and what it's all about.