Customer Reviews

Triumph of the Spirit

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What does it take to live when your chances are equal to a zero? What does it mean to survive at the expense of the others? WWII, Greece, Germans, Jews, camps, death... A young, strong boxer has a chance to fight. The SS would have fun betting on it. If he wins, he gets to live a little longer and a loaf of bread. Many people get a piece of this bread but most of all is his father and a brother. They are all he still have. He wins and lives. The looser dies. Every time he wins, he saves whatever left of the family. Every time he wins, he kills the looser. At the end, only he survives. The whole family is dead. All friends are dead. Was he right? Was not it easier to die? Yes, it was easier to die but he selects the difficult way of living being responsible for deaths of other fighters. He was able to prolong lives of the loved ones. He lived to tell the story and to fight another day. His spirit was not broken but triumphed.

This is an outstanding film with an excellent cast and the deepest power I have seen for a while. All I can say is see it for yourself and enjoy the best.

I agree with Leonard Ross, this movie is much better than Schindler's List. It is much more accurate and gritty and realistic in its portrayal of life in the camps. It is also a movie about family bonds, love and relationships and shows how these bonds were ravaged by what took place during WW II. Short of showing actual film footage in my classroom, this movie speaks volumes about the plight of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Triumph of the Spirit is probably the most realistic dramatic recreation of the horrors of Auschwitz I've seen. Director Robert Young is a pro at bringing controversial independent films to fruition, and Dafoe gives one of his best performances here. He portrays Salamo Arouch, a Greek Jewish Olympic boxer deported to Auschwitz. This true story was filmed on location at Auschwitz and Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and we are shown the death machine in full operation. Again there is an intensity and realism to this film that makes Schindler's List pale in comparison.

Edward James Olmos portrays a gypsy singer who becomes a key ally of Salamo; Gypsy entertains the SS and Salamo boxes for them while they hope for the Russians to come. One relatively minor flaw of the film is that the actors who portray SS and camp guards seem benign, almost nice at times, and I really doubt the actual female guards were as good looking as a few of the Frauleins here.

But a good touch of realism is the languages. The Germans speak German, the Poles speak Polish, and the Russians speak Russian all without subtitles (compare this to Schindler's List). And the make up job was great; the victims really looked like they were on death's door.

If you want to know about the Holocaust this drama is near the top of the list with the best documentaries. And Polanski's "The Piano" should be good too.

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and, alongwith Life is Beautiful, the best Holocaust movie made (in myopinion). Unlike Schindler's List, this movie portrays graphically what was really going on in the Auschwitz death camp (and other camps as well). It showed people undressing, preparing to enter the gas chamber. It showed the hellish daily life of the camp inmates--the agonizing work they had to do for the majority of each day, their horrific sleeping conditions, their deprivation of food, and the incredibly frequent beating and murdering of the prisoners by sick, sadistic Nazis. What really got to me the most was how the main character was actually getting thinner from starvation as the movie went on!

Scindler's List was a very dramatic, moving, well done movie, but it didn't accurately portray the true horrors of the Holocaust. The director was probably afraid to show anything that would be too graphic and disturbing for the general public and film critics. Spielberg was right in being cautious, as few people would be able to stomach a movie like Triumph of the Spirit. That is probably why this movie is virtually unknown.

My only complaint about this movie is that the main character gave a rather limp performance. A better actor in his place would have made this an absolutely perfect movie.

This amazing story is beautifully acted by Dafoe and Loggia, as well as the other cast. It is my very favorite of the films I've seen portraying the tragedy of the death camps. I recommend it to anyone as a film not just of the triumph of the spirit, but as a triumph of love over suffering and loss. It may not be easy to watch such a film as this, but it is important for us to watch it and to learn from it.

As a child growing up I had to endure the sometimes mad and raving ramblings of my father who is a dyed-in-the-wool Holocaust revisionist and an admirer of all things German. I was given a German name, a German godfather, and most of my relatives married Germanic people even though my family does not have an ounce of German blood at all. So when I was going to school I was really confused and I thought to myself " why don't I find out my own truth and not have my Father tell me things that HE believes are true, but are true to me? " So in middle school I spent countless hours in the library ( which was brimming over with a wealth of informative and educational, ah, what America once was ) and I would choose many books on the Holocaust and WWII. I picked up a book named " A Nightmare In History " and needless to say my life changed FOREVER.
If such a thing such as the Holocaust actually NEVER ocurred as my Father and the countless Hitler lovers and Neo-Nazis in the world say never ocurred, then I truly despise being born a human being and inhabiting this sick and twisted world. This was truly a soul-crushing, harrowing, nightmarish view of a world I knew about when I was a child being indoctrinated into believing it wasn't true but seeing it actually being brought to the silver screen was surreal and the most brutal, engaging, engrossing, and lividly disgusting depiction of what we as men do to our brothers and sisters.
Without going into much detail there are things in this movie that will shock ANYBODY who can call themselves a person, no matter what horror or blood and guts movie they have ever seen. The acting is solid and the affected relationship between father and son ( Willem Dafoe and Robert Loggia ) is truly heartbreaking and painful to watch. When Salomo finally was forced to say goodbye to his Father I couldn't stop crying, it had to be one of the most painful scenes I have ever seen on a movie screen. The last 10 minutes of the movie to me are the worst, bar none. I won't give anything away, all I have to say is that this movie isn't a movie at all, it is more like a going through a time machine and waking up in a nightmare world where all you want to do is escape, and anybody who believes in God above has to know that although God allows such things to happen time and time again, be it in Rwanda, Cambodia, Germany, Poland, wherever and when it happens again ( as it most likely will somewhere ) there is a silver lining to ever story: God is eternal just like the Jewish people, who have been much maligned and forced to suffer thoughout history for the faults and sins of their ancestors, and no matter how or why they have become who they are, no matter what you may think of them or any other race of people you admire or despise, we are all human, we are all brothers, we are all on this planet for a purpose, the purpose of being good, honest and decent people who were put here to live happy lives and love our neighbors and all the living creatures God put on this Earth. I am a Christian and I try to love everybody equally, and although sometimes my inherent prejudices do come out ( because all of us have them, no matter what we may think ) I try to put myself in the other person's shoes and I try to remember that every man, woman and child on this planet has a soul, a spirit that can be uplifted or taken down, exalted or shattered, but it is always there and GUESS WHAT: NO MAN IS BORN EVIL, I TRULY BELIEVE THAT. The world has a way of making men evil, but all of us have a chance to redeem ourselves and try to make the world a place that we can enjoy to live in. Think of this movie as a wake-up call for your soul: Remember your brother, CAN'T YOU SEE HIS FACE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU WHEN YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR?

Dafoe gives an extraordinary performance in this inspirational film detailing his and his familys struggle's during WWII. Dafoes character and the relationships with his father and wife are the best part of this film. The characters endure a life-time of hardship in a few short years but maintain there hope and dignity. This movie inspires both tears and jubilation but the ride is worth it. -RL

Powerfull movie,if it does not bring a tear to your eye you have no heart,one of the few movies that have moved me this much,I bought the movie the week the title character passed away,I came accross his obit in the paper,I clipped it and put it with the movie.

I have just finished viewing this movie and am speechless. First, to have the movie shot on location at Auschwitz with the remains of the camp in use and in view was numbing. To actually see the "mock" selections, assurances of a hot shower and the lie of the "health camp" for children put a touch of realism to some of the Holocaust survivor accounts that I have read. I did not live through the Holocaust but if this movie was one tenth of one percent of what it really was like, may God comfort and be merciful to the survivors and their families. I have never heard of the main character, played by Willem Dafoe, but he must have been a very brave man. I salute you, sir and as a Christian, I ask your forgiveness for what was done to the Jewish people in the name of Jesus Christ. I cautiously recommend this film for any serious student of the Holocaust, and urge that the message therein never be forgotten or repeated. Thank you.

Having watched numerous Holocaust movies, I had put off watching "Triumph of the Spirit" because I had wrongly assumed that the movie's primary focus was on boxing, even though it was centered in that most notorious of all concentration camps, Auschwitz. Well, I finally decided to watch it last night, since it is a fact-based Holocaust drama and I was very impressed at the credible portrayal of the main character, Salamo Arouch by actor Willem Dafoe.

The movie is actually quite subtle for a Holocaust drama - many of the horrors awaiting the Jewish victims at the extermination camp Auschwitz are subtly portrayed. One scene is especially horrific to me - masses of Jewish Greeks clapping when the Nazis declare they are to be given hot showers before being reunited with their loved ones...and then walking down the steps taking them to the gas chambers where they would be murdered en masse. The murder scenes are not portrayed - but the innocence of these hapless victims, who could not possibly comprehend the evils the Nazis were capable of just struck me to my very core.

Salamo Arouch finds himself in this living hell that is Auschwitz - separated from his sweetheart Allegra (Wendy Gazelle who like other able women was housed in a separate camp, Birkenau), but together with his father (Robert Loggia in a particularly noteworthy performance) and younger brother, tries to survive day to day until his boxing prowess attracts the attention of a senior Nazi officer who promptly gets him to participate in matches where the Nazi officers bet big bucks and where the winner is lucky to be rewarded with an entire loaf of bread. Salamo realizes this is his chance for earning extra rations (in a camp like Auschwitz starvation is rampant) though he is also aware that the risks are high.

The movie is interesting (at least for me) because it provides insights into the social structure of the camp - there are the Nazi officers who basically lounge around enjoying the spoils of their victims; the Kapos who are brutal in carrying out the orders by the Nazis, even if it means brutalizing their own people; and of course the prisoners themselves who are treated as sub-humans or less. Edward James Olmos is compelling in his portrayal of a Gypsy Kapo who is merciless and brutal, but who eventually softens and forms a subtle rapport with Dafoe's Arouch.

Though Arouch's story is at the heart of the drama, there is another secondary narrative revolving around the plight of Arouch's sweetheart, Allegra who together with her sister tries to stay alive, not knowing if Arouch is still alive. The situation in the women's camp appears even more desperate as the women fight with each other over a piece of bread and even shoes, turning on each other almost bestially in order to survive. This matches with my own reading of history books which portray the situation in Birkenau as unimaginably desperate.

Those who are familiar with the Holocaust will appreciate some of the subtler aspects of the story such as Salamo's brother's fate when he refuses to be part of a work detail cleaning up the gas chambers and carrying out corpses - the work detail referred to here is the Sonderkommando which comprised able-bodied men who were literally condemned to carry out the most gruesome task of disposing of the bodies of victims murdered in the gas chambers - and who were provided good rations, though due to the nature of the work, they were rotated and sent up the chimneys themselves after a short period.

"Triumph of the Spirit" is a compelling Holocaust drama that portrays the tenacity of the human spirit under the most deplorable conditions. I would recommend this to those who are keen on learning more about the Holocaust through fact-based dramas, and also the following, also based in Auschwitz:
The Grey Zone
Out of the Ashes
God on Trial