NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (October 2026): Kino have transferred Leni Riefenstahl's Tiefland to Blu-ray. Visually, Tiefland is often striking. Albert Benitz (The Holy Mountain,) who had shot mountain films for Fanck, photographs the Alpine sequences with a feel for cloud, rock, and light that remains the film’s strongest asset. The lowland scenes are more conventional studio work, with dusty village sets and shadowed castle interiors contrasting with the open heights above. Riefenstahl’s eye for composition is evident throughout, particularly in close-ups of the villagers and in the stylized framing of her dances, though the film lacks the formal daring of her documentaries. Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray of Tiefland is dual-layered, and the feature is given a very high bitrate for a 98-minute black-and-white film. This edition was restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative, and the results are excellent. Damage has been cleaned up thoroughly, with no gate weave, speckles, or scratches of note, and the image is consistently tight. Close-ups are the highlight, with the sweat and blood on Franz Eichberger’s face, the deep lines and stubble on the faces of the villagers, and the glint of Riefenstahl’s earrings and beaded costume all showing impressive detail. Grain is natural and intact, with no sign of heavy noise reduction. Contrast is rich, with deep, solid blacks in the night sequences, such as the cloaked shepherds silhouetted against the clouds, while the smoky tavern and kitchen interiors still hold detail in the shadows. Some softness and glow, in the wolf close-ups and the haze around the dance and village scenes, is clearly part of Benitz’s original photography, with diffusion and smoke used on set, and is not a weakness of the transfer. The Alpine exteriors are the film’s most beautiful passages, and the layered mist and cloud around the peaks are rendered with a depth and subtlety of grayscale that should please anyone who has seen this film in older editions. This Blu-ray provides a highly pleasing 1080P presentation.

NOTE: We have added 64 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original German language. The track is clean, with no hiss or dropouts, and the dialogue, much of it post-synchronized, is clear throughout. Giuseppe Becce’s (The Blue Light, Counsellor at Law, The Kaiser of California, Tartuffe, The Last Laugh, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,) score, which weaves in themes from Eugen d’Albert’s opera, has good presence and range for its era, swelling in the mountain passages and carrying the Spanish-flavored dance music with rhythmic clarity. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray includes a new audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide, (author of Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Ins and The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors) which gives him a useful perspective on Riefenstahl’s career behind the camera. The commentary covers the film’s protracted production history, its wartime circumstances, the casting of the extras from the internment camps, and the postwar seizure of the footage and its eventual completion. The real surprise is an extensive reel of outtakes and deleted scenes running 1:38:45, essentially the same length as the feature itself. Drawn from the camera rolls and unrestored, the footage shows its age with dust, speckles, softness, and the rounded corners of the frame visible, but it is fascinating viewing. Production slates are left in place, crediting Hermann Storr on sound and Benitz on camera, with some takes marked for night shooting and playback, and the reel includes additional mountain footage as well as alternate takes from the studio interiors. For students of Riefenstahl or of German wartime filmmaking, it is an invaluable document.

Tiefland is a deeply compromised film, a pastoral melodrama of mountain purity and lowland greed made by the Third Reich's most celebrated filmmaker while that regime was at war, and completed only after the footage spent years in Allied hands. Its story is creaky and its pacing uneven, but Bernhard Minetti's (The Kaiser of California) decadent Don Sebastian and Albert Benitz's (The Holy Mountain,) cloud-wrapped Alpine photography still command attention, and Riefenstahl's dances carry the same fascination with movement that defined her documentaries. It also cannot be watched apart from the Sinti and Roma extras whose faces fill its village scenes, many of whom did not survive the war. Leni Riefenstahl, as star or director, also appears in The Holy Mountain, The Great Leap, The Blue Light, Triumph of the Will, Olympia. Kino Lorber's Blu-ray, restored in 4K from the original negative, is a revelation, with a pristine, richly detailed image, a clean lossless German track, a commentary by Anthony Slide, and a feature-length reel of outtakes that is a remarkable document in its own right. For students of Riefenstahl, of German wartime cinema, or of the uneasy relationship between artistry and complicity, this edition is essential. Strongly recommended!

Gary Tooze