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Triumph of The Spirit
There is no shortage of films about the Holocaust and the very fact that they tackle that difficult period often gets them a free ride with critics. Robert Young's Triumph of the Spirit is an engaging, thoughtful film, but it doesn't really add much to the canon of films on the Holocaust and doesn't always connect on an emotional level. Willem Dafoe plays Salamo Arouch, a Jewish boxer from Greece whose entire family is rounded up and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. This hell-hole was the site of millions of deaths during the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else who didn't fit into their narrow view.
In the camp Salamo, along with his brother (Costas Mandylor) and father (Robert Loggia) are subjected to daily torture and humiliation at the hands of Nazis as well as kapos, fellow inmates given a bit of power. Kyr (Jerzy Gralek), a particularly brutal kapo, pushes Salamo around one too many times and ends up in a fist fight that leaves him face down. The Nazis put Salamo to work, fighting other prisoners for their entertainment. The film follows the nightmare of life in Auschwitz as well as the growing resistance movement and the social structure among the prisoners.
The film touches on some topics not portrayed in many Holocaust films: The interplay between Dafoe and a gypsy (Edward James Olmos), the resistance, the boxing, the presence of Greek prisoners, but most of these subjects are addressed rather lightly.
The film's approach is to use subtlety (as much as is possible in the face of such single-minded evil) in place of overt emotion and, while it doesn't pander, this leaves it slightly cold. It's not a film that tugs at the viewer's heart-strings in a cheap, easy way, but bald, honest emotion, while difficult to pull off, is the only way to make an audience really feel for the characters. The TV version of Anne Frank never stooped to begging for sympathy, but it still managed to devastate. Triumph of the Spirit, on the other hand, is more likely to make a viewer understand without really getting under the skin.
The title hints at grandeur. Taken from Leni Riefenstahl's legendary piece of propaganda Triumph of the Will, Triumph of the Spirit suggests that spirituality conquers might. Dafoe certainly portrays a man whose intelligence and depth are completely internalized and there are moments when he and his co-stars bring real pain to the screen, but overall there is a sense that this story has been told more strongly elsewhere.
VIDEO:
The anamorphic widescreen video looks very good. There is little dirt, the picture is crisp, and the transfer leaves no immediately visible artifacts. There are a couple of instances of damage, including at least one vertical scratch that runs for a little while, but overall a fine job on an obscure film. A full-screen version is included on the flip-side.
AUDIO:
The Dolby Digital stereo surround is fine. The effective score sounds good, as do the voices. A Spanish stereo surround track is also available, as are English and Spanish subtitles.
EXTRAS:
Just a trailer.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
There is nothing wrong with Triumph of the Spirit. The actors and filmmakers all do fine work. There is just a sense of all-consuming humanness missing. The events depicted are devastating, it's true. But in order to make a movie more than just a movie the filmmakers need to go one step further and pull the viewer inside, make them feel what the characters feel. Triumph of the Spirit doesn't quite achieve that. Email Gil Jawetz at [email protected]
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