When you open Leni Riefenstahl’s Africa, which boasts some four-hundred photographs, including fifty or so biographical ones, many worlds open in front of you. Literally so. These are the worlds of the Dinka, Latuka, Nuba, Nuer, Mesakin, Murle, Quissayr, Shilluk, and the Falata nomads from Sudan, the Samburu from Kenya, and the Maasai from Kenya and Tanzania. When you open the book, their worlds burst open. They grow in front of you. They spread out in every which direction. They swallow you. And when you close the book, these worlds recede and shrink. They vanish as if by magic. The book turns again into a large and thick tome with a commanding presence. But you will never dare open it in vain. Whole worlds are ready to spring out of it at any moment. And swallow you entire.

Addendum I (January 1, 2006)

There is one photograph in Riefenstahl’s book to which I return almost compulsively. Hand in hand, she is walking with a Nuba man, who is helping her carry her photographic equipment. They are picking a path among huge boulders. In his late teens or early twenties, he is wearing only a thin strip of fur around his waist. Slim and long-legged, dark and shiny, he is towering two heads above her. His legs reach all the way to her chest. The photograph was taken in 1975, when she was in her mid-seventies. The image brings to mind Rumi’s fanciful dream of stroking the heaving flank of a sleeping lion.

Addendum II (January 2, 2006)

My friends from Germany are sympathetic with my enthusiasm about Riefenstahl’s photographic rendering of the humanity’s cradle, but they nevertheless focus on the photographer instead. She is not appreciated in Germany even after her recent death, they tell me. One way or another, it appears that she had not done enough to make amends with her own youthful flirtation with the Nazis. Or with Hitler himself. Two of my friends use the very same words when they refer to the German sentiments about her: persona non grata. Unacceptable and unwelcome, that is. My own defense is always the same, always focusing on the photographs rather than the photographer. But can the two be separated? Or is it possible that the two are intimately related? More to the point, does it take a youthful flirtation with the Nazis to render the cradle of humanity with panache? Ah, perish the thought!

Addendum III (October 5, 2008)

Today I remembered Riefensthal, and I set out to find this piece about her in my Residua. At first I thought I should go about a year back, but I quickly checked myself and doubled my estimate. This is what I usually do when it comes to time. Thus I was stunned to find out that the piece was written almost three years ago. This is rather usual, too, as I often find out that my doubling of the original estimate is rarely enough. Not only do things take e times longer than we originally expect when we plan something (“E,” January 24, 2002), but the trick works backwards, as well. Things remembered tend to have happened e times longer ago than we think.

Footnote

1. Köln: Taschen, 2002.