Well! What a find!
Made in war-time Germany in 1944, The Great Sacrifice (Opfergang) is not a film I'd even heard of this morning. I happened across a reference to it in a Berliners' personal diary from January 1945. A teenager 18, she was enchanted by the movie. When we watch today we should try to remember the impact this film had on her in that cinema in war-torn Berlin in 1945.
First of all - I do not agree with some of the convoluted reviews here. They have not been able to get past the thought that the director (Veit Harlan) made some hideous Nazi propaganda shockers. Opfergang is NOT one of those. Another reviewer seems to think this is not an "escapist" film. It ABSOLUTELY is!!!
So - let's look at Opfergang. First, I saw a restored 4K version on YouTube. The wonderful Agfacolour is MAGNIFICENT and the photography superb. Worth seeing just for those two aspects. It repays multiple watches.
Opfergang is a unique film - intriguing & beguiling, a film of contrasts, but nevertheless one which creates its own language: a language of imagery and metaphors.
There is something fairy-tale and dream-like about the way this thing looks and works. The masquerade ball scene is visually stunning - pure escapism, as is the frolicking with the beautiful horses. The end scenes are enigmatic. Unfortunately, it's not cut that well and it's a bit hard to follow the story, such as it is.
It contains bleak Nietzsche poetry, which is kind of played out in the story. There is a lot of "alluded to" darkness here - but it is uplifted, deliberately uplifted by the colour and camera work, which looks sumptuous.
The story is a tedious tale, something to do with honour & sacrifice. Something to do with how a woman, Octavia (von Mayendorff) makes a "sacrifice" for her husband, Albrecht (Raddatz). It's hard if not impossible to see this though, as we are drawn instead to Äls (Söderbaum) who is the physical & spiritual representation of everything that Octavia is not. Albrecht is drawn to her too. Irresistibly so. We all would be.
Having watched Opfergang several times I now believe that Äls is a sort of elemental force - a Sprite - a force of nature. She's not real. She has a zest for life throughout with a Pixie/Elf-like quality, like the innocent in all of us. I'd want to be her - not one of the other boring creations! However, I'm no longer sure if Äls is real. I wonder if she is a creation of Albrecht, or Octavia, or both of them - the embodiment of everything that is missing from their cold unloving marriage?
Opfergang is essentially a sort of bizarre love triangle: a very odd & metaphysical one. Personally - I didn't get the "sacrifice" - it doesn't make sense: probably part of the honour thing - lost through today's eyes, but it might mean something through the eyes of a young impressionable German in 1944/early 1945.
So, Opfergang. A film about a perfect non-wartime world (which, for propaganda purposes shows Hamburg completely undamaged, even though it was destroyed by air-raids in 1943...). Filled with handsome looking well-off people and old farts moralising and reading Nietzsche. Where idealised characters sail, row, ride horses in the surf and play Chopin on a superb grand piano. It's PURE ESCAPISM - a beautiful film to watch as you wait for the next air raid to come and destroy your city and family. If this is some propaganda call to the people of Germany to make a great sacrifice - then it's a very odd vehicle for it.
The more I watch Opfergang - the more tempted I am to give it 8. Watch it on YouTube and see what you think.
