(4/8/00-4/12/00)
This is a true epic film. It is majestic and stately. The characters are larger-than-life. It is Shakespearean in its feel and it reminds me of Ivan the Terrible as well. And it builds to a grand climax which resounds with a ring of inevitability. The two parts do form a unified whole and seeing the two of them together is remarkable.
It starts off kind of dull. It feels cold. It doesn't involve--or it didn't involve me, and I was left admiring the set design and the pagentry. I didn't find Siegfried very interesting as a character--he seemed vapid and, like the film, dull. But that all changed when Brunhild came on the scene.
The Nibelungen is about a crime and the consequences of that crime and the people who are trapped in the wake of that crime. And the crime is fraud. Gunther wants Brunhild as a bride, but Brunhild will only wed a man who can defeat her in physical combat. Siegfried comes to Gunther's court in hopes of wedding his sister, Kriemhild. Gunther offers Siegfried his sister if Siegfried will help him win Brunhild. And Siegfried does this. He does it by performing the physical feats while wearing a cloak (or some sort of garment or cloth) which makes him invisible.
This is a sleazy thing to do. It is a crime of fraud perpetrated on Brunhild. What I find interesting is that Gunther's court at Worms is shown as so elegant and pure. It has a lightness about it and it appears to be situated ata high altitude. But beneath this rarefied surface there lurks a shabbiness.
It is sad that Siegfried would consent to something like this and it is also sad that he would consent to become a blood-brother to such a shady character. Siegfried and Gunther swear an oath to protect each other. It is an oath that Gunther does not live up to. As I said, Siegfried doesn't seem like the sharpest guy in the world.
So Brunhild comes to Worms. She is not happy about the situation and it is evident to her that her husband is not the hero who could conquer her (and to whom I suspect she would be happy to surrender). And eventually the truth comes out. Gunther has Siegfried impersonate himself and remove from Brunhild the bracelet that gives her strength. Kriemhild finds it and Siegfried confesses the truth to her. And when Brunhild persists in referring to Siegfried as Gunther's vassal she can't help but spill the beans. The scene when the two argue on the steps of the cathedral is probably the best scene in Siegfried. By that time I was totally involved.
Brunhild demands Siegfried's death and Gunther reluctantly goes along with it. He appears to be breaking his "blood-brother" oath, but Brunhild has deceived him by telling him that Siegfried took her virginity while impersonating him. Does this justify having him killed? It might, given their code of honor, but he shouldn't have just taken her word for it. I would think that being someone's blood-brother implies an obligation to trust.
Hagen is appointed to kill Siegfried and Kriemhild is easily tricked into telling him about Siegfried's vulnerable spot. Once again, she isn't smart enough to keep her mouth shut, but then you have to wonder how anybody knows that Siegfried has a vulnerable spot in the first place. They are all clucks. Gunther starts to be sympathetic at this point in that he is very reluctant to let the deed take place. And later Brunhild boasts about how she tricked him. Brunhild has manipulated him into avenging her honor. Now it is Kriemhild's turn to demand justice and demand she does.
But her kinsmen will not take her part in this. They all claim to have a commitment to Hagen and Siegfried ends with Kriemhild stewing for revenge.
Kriemhild doesn't have much presence in the first part, but as her bitterness obsesses her she takes center stage. She seems justified at first, as was Brunhild, but her desire for revenge becomes a madness, willing to destroy anything that gets in her way.
In Kriemhild's Revenge, King Etzel asks to marry Kriemhild. His emissary, Rudiger, mentions that as Etzel's wife no insult to Kriemhild would go unpunished. She asks him to swear to that and later asks Etzel to swear the same. This vow by honorable men entraps them is the key to Kriemhild's revenge.
When Kriemhild leaves to be taken to Etzel she refuses to say goodbye to her brother Gunther. Her mother and a priest ask herto reconsider, but she refuses them both.
Etzel turns out to be the leader of a group of nomads who live in tents. His kingdom is of the earth, about as far away as you can get from the rarefied atmosphere of the court at Worms. Etzel himself is a sort of lovable wild man. Kriemhild bears him a son and when he offers her anything she desires as a reward she asks him to invite her brothers.
Etzel is happy to do so, but he is not happy to be drawn into Kriemhild's plot of revenge. He tells her that as long as Hagen does not disturb his peace he will not disturb Hagen's.
Here I have to wonder why Kriemhild's brothers were so dumb as to bring Hagen with them onto Kriemhild's turf. It is the feast of the solstice and she has her people ambush the soldiers that her brothers brought with them. Hagen then kills her infant son and forgoes the protection of the rules of hospitality.
The Nibelungen then turns into a full-fledged action picture with Kriemhild's brothers and Hagen holed up in a building, fending the assaults of Etzel's troops (if you can call them that). Rudiger arrives and Kriemhild forces him to go and fight the Nibelungen. He doesn't want to because one of Kriemhild's brothers is married to his daughter, but she holds him to his oath. When her brothers plead for mercy Kriemhild replies that if they will just hand over Hagen they are free. But they refuse.
Hagen offers to give himself up, but Gunther will not let him. A code of honor has now turned into a destructive force, pulling down just about everyone. Kriemhild finally has them set the building on fire. They are smoked out and Hagen is killed by Kriemhild herself.
Gunther is wonderful in the second part of the film. So much of this was his fault and he suffers for it. And Hagen does try to do right at the end himself after participating in a heinous act. Kriemhild, I think, violates the spirit of the code that she holds others to. Her plot to destroy Hagen violates the spirit of hospitality and her abuse of Rudiger is totally without honor. She asked him to swear an oath to defend her when she was already planning toinvolve him in a personal vendetta. That was shameful. Her cause was just but not her methods.
I felt sorry for Etzel who loses his troops or his people in great numbers, just to satisfy the agenda of this woman who was merely using him. He even loses his child. Etzel and Rudiger were the true victims in all this.
It is a harrowing tale in which everything fits together. It is a grand drama of powerful people in high places and was made in a style which suited its subject matter. It is stately but not stodgy and when viewed in a print preserved by the Munich Film Museum and shown at the correct speed with the intertitles translated I think I liked it even more than Metropolis. A real surprise.
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