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5.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Der weiße Rausch - Neue Wunder des Schneeschuhs remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have any interest in how people used to hurl themselves down mountains before safety was a thing, you should watch this. It is absolutely worth it just to see the stunts. People who love old-school physical comedy or winter sports will probably get a kick out of it. If you can't stand black-and-white films where the plot is thinner than a crepe, you'll likely hate it within ten minutes.
I wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did. It’s a mountain film, which usually means people looking sternly at peaks, but this is basically a slapstick comedy on ice. Leni Riefenstahl plays a girl who doesn't know how to ski yet, and her attempts to learn are actually pretty charming. It’s strange seeing her in something so lighthearted considering what she did later in her career.
The whole thing centers around a big race. They call it a fox hunt. Two experts are the foxes, and about forty or fifty other skiers have to catch them. It sounds simple because it is. There isn't much more to it than that.
There is this one guy, a local innkeeper or something, who keeps falling over. It’s the kind of humor that feels really old, like something out of The Love Trap, but it works because you can tell he's actually falling on hard snow. Ouch. You can almost feel the bruises forming through the screen.
The camera work is what really got me. I kept wondering how they filmed some of this in 1931. The camera is right there in the middle of the pack. It wobbles and shakes, but that just makes it feel like you’re sliding down the hill with them. It doesn't feel like a 'stunning visual experience' or whatever—it feels like chaos. Pure, cold chaos.
Sometimes the movie just stops the story to show people doing tricks. It goes on for a long time. Like, a long time. You see them jumping over houses and doing these weird synchronized turns. It’s clearly just the director, Arnold Fanck, showing off his buddies' skills. I didn't mind it, but my mind did wander a bit during the third or fourth long skiing montage.
The sound is a bit rough too. It was early days for talking pictures in Germany. Sometimes the voices sound like they’re coming from the bottom of a well. And the music is very loud and constant. It never really stops, which gets a bit tiring after an hour of brass instruments blasting at you.
There’s a scene where they all stay in a tiny hut. It’s crowded and everyone is making jokes. It felt very real. Not like a movie set, but like a bunch of friends who were actually stuck in the snow together. That’s something I liked about it—the people seem like they’re actually having fun, not just acting like it.
I noticed one extra in the background of a race scene who just completely wipes out and disappears into a snowbank. The camera just keeps rolling. They didn't have the budget to do another take, I guess. Or maybe they just didn't care. It’s those little messy moments that make these old films feel more alive than the polished stuff we get now.
Is it better than other stuff from that era? It's definitely more exciting than something like The Guilt of Silence. It has energy. It’s not trying to be deep or meaningful. It just wants to show you some cool stuff on a mountain.
The ending is a bit abrupt. The race finishes, and that’s pretty much it. No big emotional wrap-up. No lessons learned. Just a bunch of tired people in the snow. I kind of respect that.
If you watch it, pay attention to the equipment. Their skis are so long and have no metal edges. It’s a miracle nobody died during the filming. Or maybe they did and they just didn't put it in the credits. Who knows.
It’s a weird little time capsule. It’s not a masterpiece, and I wouldn't say it's 'important' cinema, but it’s fun. And sometimes that’s enough when it’s raining outside and you want to see people fall down in the Alps.
I’ll probably forget the names of the characters by tomorrow. But I’ll remember the shot of fifty people skiing down a vertical cliff at the same time. That stays with you. ❄️
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