This film was showing as part of the National Film Theatre's 'Weimar Season', but it's really nothing at all like the 'Cabaret'/'Lulu'/'Dr Caligari' stereotype of weird, transgressive art. It's a straightforward morally unambiguous story, a member of a genre that has no English equivalent: a 'Bergfilm' (mountaineering melodrama).
I was vaguely aware of their existence, as they tend to get brought up when people are attacking Leni Riefensthal, but I'd never seen one before, although I've seen two or three genuine climbing documentaries from the 1930s and 1930s. This one was actually a historical picture supposedly set in the golden age of alpinism in the 1860s, although as usual the leading lady's make-up and styling reflected 1920s ideas of glamour instead :-p
It's (loosely) based on the events surrounding the real first ascent of the Matterhorn, but since I didn't know the history involved I was taken by surprise by the outcome (not what I was expecting, given the film's origin) and was as gripped by the nailbiting tension of the mountain sequences as anyone could have wished. Peter Voss is very impressive as the courtly, reserved English amateur, Edward Whymper. He reminded me rather of Leslie Howard, whom I can definitely see playing the part :-)
The leading man of the film, however, is Luis Trenker, who gets the starring role of the mountain guide Carrel (who, frankly, appears to be neglecting his nominal daytime business in order to spend all his time climbing -- his family have a right to object!) He is a man of rather more violent moods and tempers, and his evil half-brother plays on this. We expect to see Carrel's character flaws lead to tragedy... but in fact he manages to overcome them, which is an unexpected and welcome result.
His beautiful (and very 1920s) wife Felicitas only appears in half the film, in the bolted-on romantic subplot which is the real Achilles heel of the picture. (Apparently Trenker was sufficiently unhappy with this strand of the film, doubtless dictated from on high for commercial reasons, that he subsequently remade it in the sound era minus the unhistorical elements.) But the problem is not so much Carrel's jealousy of his wife's apparent interest in the injured and grateful Englishman -- the performances leave it nicely ambiguous whether there is any actual unspoken attraction between them or not or merely a warm friendship, although Whymper is too chivalrous and Felicitas too loyal ever to consider acting on it -- but the Iago-like characterisation of Giacomo, the evil half-brother, which is what's shown as dictating Carrel's suspicions.
The jealousy sub-plot might have worked perfectly well minus the character of Giacomo (although that would have required the hero to shoulder more responsibility for his own failings, which would have given greater depth to the character but might have been unwelcome!) Alternatively, if the younger brother had been given some decent characterisation himself then his actions might have been more credible; there are hints at the beginning, for instance, that Giacomo resents Carrel's swanning off up the mountain and leaving him to do all the work of the hotel (indeed, during the big 'temptation' scene Carrel is sitting around smoking while Giacomo is hard at work splitting wood, and nobody seems to question this), and that Carrel snubs him coldly by rejecting the flask of brandy he attempts to supply for the rescue expedition.
If there had been more shades of grey in the relationship between the brothers it would have been a better film. As it was, Giacomo's sole motivation for all this convoluted grinning scheming is presented as being his lust-filled and amazingly blatant assaults on Felicitas, which don't seem to be notably discommoded by his brother's existence. He is presented as all bad, and Carrel as purely his victim.
The best part of this sub-plot is probably Giacomo's rout at the hands of his crippled mother -- the best 'old lady to the rescue' action/drama suspense sequence you're ever likely to encounter! It helps that the old lady (Alexandra Schmitt) is an excellent performer -- although I noted with irony that according to film convention, Carrel can apparently rain kisses on the face of his 67-year-old co-star, but can only lay his cheek chastely against that of the actress playing his adored wife ;-p)
The worst part is the segment where Felicitas apparently sets out to climb the Matterhorn herself in a state of hysteria to find her husband, having zero experience and totally unsuitable clothing -- watching her teetering through the snow is just silly.
Where the film really scores, however, is in what were no doubt the 'money shots' for this genre: the actual climbing sequences. We are told by an onlooker early on in the film that Whymper "klettert wie ein Affe" (climbs like a monkey), and it's a credible verdict (although later in the film it stung my national pride that the supposedly talented Englishman tends to get pulled up the mountain by Carrel :-p)
I've no idea how the climbing was done; whether they managed to recruit actors who could actually climb, whether German performers were more likely to have it as a hobby anyway, whether they used stunt doubles (it didn't look like it) and whether they shot on mocked-up rock faces in the studio or genuine long shots on the cliffs, or both. I don't know how accurate it was in its representation of Alpine equipment of the 1860s, but at the very least it's a fascinating record of techniques of the 1920s, an utterly lost era in modern terms.
We watch climbers ascending without harnesses, pitons or fixed cams, clad in a simple stocking cap or Tyrolean hat and encumbered with a coil of cotton rope slung over one shoulder and a five-foot ice axe danging from one arm, with their hobnailed boots clinging to tiny holds in the rock. We watch them abseiling with nothing more sophisticated than a loop of rope caught skilfully around the body, and cutting steps in a shower of ice-chips using those long-handled axes in lieu of spiked crampons. We watch one man belay another up a cliff-face with nothing more than an outcrop of rock or his own braced body to take the strain; we watch the 'second man' catch his leader when they are roped together and there is a fall. We watch men crawl up seemingly featureless stretches of cliff with strong fingers jammed into the rock to take their whole body-weight, and the camera follows them from above and below. (It *must* have been done in the studio to allow for those close shots, but it's extremely convincing.)
And we see some grim falls, in at least one case from the perspective of the falling man.
The impressive thing is that the film succeeds in making these lengthy technical sequences interesting by keeping up the tension, thanks to the maligned subplot; we honestly don't know whether Carrel is going to give Whymper the support the Englishman trusts him to provide, or whether he is going to succumb to his demons as Giacomo expects. And, as it turns out (for those of us whom don't know our 1860s mountaineering history), the eventual conquest of the peak is *not* the end of the story, nor the climax of the film. They still have to nurse the novices whom they were obliged to include in the expedition back down again....
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