In Part II of Lang’s epic The Nibelungen, the despondent Kriemhild forms an alliance with Attila the Hun and massacres Hagen’s forces in a violent siege. While the design of Part I, Siegfried’s Death, is highly decorative—amidst colossal rock formations and vast architectural structures, the characters are almost ornamental motifs—in Kriemhild’s Revenge the style modulates to a kaleidoscope of movement and the film becomes a terrifying study of barbarism.