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Director Ray Muller's three-hour portrait of controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl grapples with the central controversy of her career: was she a "pure" filmmaker whose political naivet allowed her stunning visions to be harnessed by Hitler, or was she the key mythmaker of the Nazi propaganda machine? The dancer turned actress turned director is well represented with generous clips from her work both in front of and behind the camera, from the ethereally beautiful The Blue Light through the romantic fantasy Teifland, with special focus on her two most famous works: the stunning propaganda piece The Triumph of the Will (a chillingly brilliant work of demagoguery which she helped design and stage as well as film) and the poetic, technically breathtaking documentary Olympia. After her exile from filmmaking, she became an acclaimed ethnographic photographer and more recently a scuba diver and underwater photographer. Though she was over 90 at the time of the interviews, Riefenstahl's energy and commanding presence dominate the film and overpower Muller. At one point she practically grabs the directorial reins from him. The film never really resolves her complicity as a Nazi propagandist; she maintains her innocence while Muller questions her assertions with contrary evidence, but he appears too awed to really push the issue. Whatever your feelings, it's hard not to come away from this film just a little awed by the talented and tenacious Ms. Riefenstahl yourself. --Sean Axmaker

A spellbinding account of the women best known as Hitler's moviemaker and recently hailed by The New Times as "one of the greatest women filmmakers ever." In this remarkable documentary, Leni Riefenstahl addresses her past for the first time on camera. While she never actually joined the Nazi Party, as the creator of the single most effective propaganda film ever made, Triumph Of The Will, Riefenstahl has spent much of her life trying to live down her association with the Third Reich. Her personal relationship with Hitler is still in question. Feisty and charismatic at 91, Riefenstahl revisits the landmarks of her turbulent life - from her beginnings as a daredevil actress in German mountain films to her direction of such stunning narratives as The Blue Light (1932) and Tiefland (1940s, released in 1954), to her infamous, brilliant documentaries Triumph Of The Will (1935) and Olympia(1938), to her anthropological photographs of the now extinct Nuba tribes in Africa. The film brings the story of Riefenstahl right up to her current passion - scuba diving and shooting films of exotic aquatic life. Altogether, a riveting story that leaves the viewer in total awe of its controversial subject.