This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Blistering performances.

I found this German film in the book 1001 Movies You See Before You Die, it was made in three versions, in German, English and French, and you can watch it as a full 3 hours 26 minutes movie, or in two parts, written, directed and produced by Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will). Basically Olympia, or Olympiad, was the first documentary feature film of the Olympic Games ever made, documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany, this was during the time of Nazi Germany, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, obviously the Olympics Games of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled due to World War II. Festival of Beauty opens with images of the Olympic athletes training, stretching and relaxing, then the games continue. Commentators from around the world cover the many sporting events, the sports included in Part Two are gymnastics (pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and uneven bars), sailing, fencing, boxing, pentathlon, shooting, the 4000-meter cross country race, sprinting, shot put, 400 metres, hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, decathlon, hockey, polo, football (or soccer), cycling, horse riding (equestrian), rowing, diving (board) and swimming. It ends with the ringing of the large Olympic bell, and the Olympic flag and the many country flags lowering. In Part Two, spectators seen in the audience include Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring, and athletes seen competing include GB's Jack Beresford, Germany's Konrad Frey, USA's Cornelius Johnson and USA's Jesse Owens. The film was commissioned by Hitler "as a song of praise to the ideals of National Socialism", Riefenstahl was supplied with 30 cameramen, as well as planes and airships, the film is obviously full of bad taste material for modern audiences, but with interesting sporting events, and more importantly groundbreaking filming techniques, including unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups, tracking shots and aerial shots, it is considered one of the best documentaries ever made. Very good!

In a world where female directors ARE discriminated against and always have been it's a tragedy that this genius (Riefenstahl) destroyed her reputation by working for the Nazis. I've seen both the Olympiad films and they left me chilled, inspired, and ashamed of myself for being inspired by them. It is quite vicious and unashamed white-supremecist propaganda, but by God it's done well. I'm wondering if the so-called "olympic ideal" EVER existed now? Are the olympics about sport, or just a huge great marketing vehicle? Nowadays it's Coca-Cola & Nike; back in the 1930s it was Hitler and the Nazi Party. The 'message' of Olympiad is that National Socialist Germany is the highest evolution of human society and that Aryan supermen dominate sport. Riefenstahl did a brilliant job of presenting this case and I'm sure that to many people it seemed reasonable and seductive; but that was before Blitzkrieg and the Holocaust. It IS a wonderful film and Leni Riefenstahl was one of the most talented movie directors who ever lived, but let's never forget she was also a collaborator in this most evil of all regimes. My belief has always been that she knew exactly what Hitler was up to and happily took part because she never thought she'd be held to account for it. By all means watch Olympiad and be enthralled by it (just like I was) but remember, this is the devil's work - and it could happen again.

Olympia Part I has the feel of a modern highlights film while Part II does not. Part II seems classier. Maybe it's a changed state of mind as I viewed the two parts a month apart. Perhaps it's because Part II has a greater variety of sports. Part I is all track and field while Part II contains esoteric sports such as sailing and the biathlon (or whatever the sport is called with all the running and shooting). Whatever it is, Part II is the better of the pair, although neither are something to get worked up over.

Rarely -- perhaps never before or since -- has the sheer beauty of the human body and the joy in its perfection been as well captured as in in "Olympia, Festival of Beauty". Watching this is film is to capture some sense of what the Ancient Greeks meant when they discussed _arete_ -- the "virtue" of being "beautiful" in body and soul. The great Humanists of the Renaissance would have been honored to count Miss Riefenstahl among their number had they been able, by some miracle, to see this canvas of Beauty in motion. As art, this film ranks with the works of Michaelangelo, Donatello, Phidias, and others who have scaled the empyrean heights and seen Humanity looking back at them. Poignant is the dolorous thought that within a few years so many of these paragons of _arete_ would be killed in the War. It is no wonder that Joseph Goebbels was said to have disliked Riefenstahl -- while she (even in "Triumph of the Will") held a mirror to the beauty of humanity and its highest aspirations, he dredged up the most noxious evils of the soul and twisted them into images of fear & horror; while she emphasized unity and camaraderie, he stressed division & distrust in order to secure his own vile position under the Fuhrer whom they both viewed so differently. Miss Riefenstahl portrayed people of all races and nations at the most sublime pinnacle of their own perfection, while a few years later Walt Disney and the Warner Brothers gave us buck-toothed Japanese midgets and paunchy German robots as The Inhuman Enemy. Today, however, it is SHE who is reviled. The more things change ... the more they remain the same