In the Telluride catalog, Slavoj Zizek calls The Great Sacrifice, “the supreme achievement of the Nazi melodrama.” Before the film’s screening at the festival Sunday morning, in Zizek’s inimitable way, he put the work of director Veit Harlan into context. “[Harlan was] one of the Big 3 of Nazi cinema. Number 1 was Leni Reifenstahl, number 2 was Douglas Sirk. These two, I think, they can be redeemed. [With] Leni, the impotence of the analysis starts with, you think she’s a bad girl…but it doesn’t work. Douglas Sirk, I have greater suspicions there. But Harlan, he is the ultimate, he can not be redeemed. But he is a breathtaking visual talent.” For perspective: later Zizek noted that when he “despises” someone or something, he uses words like “brilliant” or “breathtaking”; when he actually respects them, he says “they are not completely an idiot.”

Its maker and its message may have been despicable (and Zizek’s post film lecture, summarized below, left no doubt that Harlan made the film with Nazi ideals in mind), but there’s no question that The Great Sacrifice is a breathtakingly visual film.

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