In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

138 ARRAYS
shared in the Black Forest: our first walk to the cabin, in the twilight;
the pleasure of being together; the view from the meadow to the peaceful
contours of the dark mountains; playing with a ball in the glade; the
descent through the meadow to the narrow path" (17). Concluding with
a quotation from Rilke's Stundenbuch (Book of Hours), Heidegger's
passage on the concept Existenzfreudigkeit converges with Doris and
Claus's central experience in Schickele's novel. The presence of death in
the crevasse and the majesty of the Black Forest's mountainous landscape
provide the certainty that human existence is all about possessing oneself:
"Whoever is not rich, now that the summer is fading I will always
have to wait and never possess himself."
Self-possession and erotic possession are important themes in the film
Der Heilige Berg (The Sacred Mountain), which premieres in Berlin on
December 17. It tells of a mountain ascent by two friends who at first
do not realize that they are in love with the same woman. As they
become aware of this conflict, tensions arise, and their rivalry quite
naturally leads to an accident in which they both die. This fictional
drama is paralleled by a real one behind the scenes: the beautiful young
Leni Riefenstahl, who plays the lead, fondly observes how the director,
Arnold Fanck, and her colleague Luis Trenker vie for her sexual favors:
"I grew closer and closer to Dr. Fanck, but although 1 greatly respected
and admired him as a brilliant film pioneer and intellectual, as a potential
lover he had no effect on me. 1 was unsettled, therefore, by the fact that
Fanck grew more deeply in love with me day by day" (Riefenstahl, 47).
One night, after filming some scenes in the Lower Alps, the director finds
Riefenstahl lying in Trenker's arms. Fanck is "thunderstruck." He
throws himself into a nearby river, but is rescued. The evening reaches
its peak with a fight between the rivals. Riefenstahl manages to end this
potentially lethal battle by pretending that she, too, is about to kill
herself: "A brutal fistfight began, growing more and more violent. 1 tried
to pull them apart but it was no use. 1 ran to the window, opened it, and
climbed out on the sill as if 1 were going to jump. My plot worked. The
men stopped fighting" (49). But instead of subsiding, the turmoil of
desire and confusion grows ever more involved. When it comes time to
shoot the final skiing scenes amid the majestic scenery of the Swiss Alps,
a new drama develops: Fanck, Riefenstahl, and Trenker have problems
figuring out the sleeping arrangements in a small cabin. This psychological
(rather than physical) conflict also involves the cameraman, Schnee-