In some ways, The Wrath of Kriemhild surpasses Siegfried's Death, but it also loses some of that film's greatness. The plot of this one is more cohesive than the first, which is quite amazing. The second half of the actual poem is a lot sloppier and a lot harder to tread through, until, that is, you get to the climactic battle scenes; only the Iliad's are better. Lang and Harbou embellished the Huns. The poet-compiler of the Nibelungenlied didn't know a Hun from his right ball, and as a result they are, more or less, the same as the Burgundians in custom. For example, although the poet clearly describes Etzel as a heathen (which is Kriemhild's main concern as Rudiger tries to persuade her to marry him), when she gets to Hunland, the first thing she does is go to mass. The Huns here are clearly heathens; they're almost like caveman. The depiction of them is hilarious, especially Verbal, the jester, who has two marvelous scenes. Etzel's character has been given more weight. He is much more formidable. All he does is bemoan his fate in the original poem. Lang and Harbou are masterful at building suspense, especially at the banquet scene, which is intercut with Verbal's second performance to an amazing effect. However, as is the nature of this half of the poem, the film's amazing technical accomplishments are missing in this one, for the most part, except for a dazzling sequence where Etzel's hall burns down with the Nibelungs inside. The one thing I do have to object to is the way Harbou changes the ending. SPOILERS: in the poem, after Hildebrand captures Hagen and Gunther, they are imprisoned. Kriemhild visits Hagen in his cell and demands that he reveal where he has hidden the horde. He refuses and she herself decapitates her brother. When Hagen still refuses, she decapitates him. Hildebrand (or possibly Dietrich) is so disgusted that a woman would presume to murder a great warrior that he, in turn, decapitates her, calling her a "Devil Woman". Etzel, who is much weaker in the poem than he is here, says something silly like: "Ah me!" I can understand why they would want to keep a unity of time and place as Hildebrand brings them from the castle; to retain the prison settings of the two deaths would make the film very anticlimactic. I also understand why they didn't have Hildebrand kill Kriemhild: his character is much reduced here; his name is only mentioned once. But, to have Kriemhild kill herself, adopting Brynhild's death from the Icelandic sources, is just catering to the audience instead of challenging them. The point of the poem is that Kriemhild's wrath goes far beyond it should into the realm of pure evil. Here, we simply have her die for her lost love. It's not as interesting.
Review of Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge
