Hammered

There are few topics that will present a film with as daunting an underpinning as the Holocaust. It's a fair statement to suggest that it might be difficult to approach from a new angle or be able to say something that hasn't been stated in the many excellent films about it that have been done in the past half-century. But it's a topic that continues to resonate because of the lasting tragedy that it was and continues to be. Indeed, with the rise of fascism in many nations around the world at present, it's a story that almost demands to be told again; a story of unfathomable cruelty that begins with a simple assumption about people as 'others', rather than as humans. In this respect, The Survivor is another in the long list of those films that delivers that brutal message with hands both overt and subtle. Almost like a talented boxer, you might say.

I didn't know the story of Harry Haft before seeing it this evening, so everything that was old was new again, as it were, and I certainly appreciate that both writer Justine Joel Gilmer and director Barry Levinson apparently stuck closely to the work of Harry's son, Alan, who wrote the book that the film is based on, which in turn was based on the stories that Harry relayed to him throughout his life. In historical films like these, you often don't want to take liberties with a tragedy that still remains a living memory to many people and because the dramatic effect is already built in. You don't need to try very hard to make people react to what was done in the camps and what effects it had on the people who did manage to survive, as well as those who lived alongside them in the years that followed. All of those emotional effects are on display in this film and it's something that can and should resonate with any empathetic person. The aspect that always reaches me in films like this is the question of how these characters- these humans -deal with the mental and emotional impact, not only of things that happened to them, but decisions that they made that contributed to or altered those events.

In this case, the most obvious element of that was Harry boxing in the camps at the behest of an SS officer. In doing so, he was seen as "cooperating" with the scions of evil that were torturing him and everyone he knew because of their identity. But it was also a perfect example of a survivor's instinct (hence, the title.) Not only did he accept the path that was offered to him on behalf of his own lizard brain, as the first instinct of most when offered a route out of that hell would be to take it, but also because he was driven by the memory of his lover, Leah, and figured that the better the chance he stood of survival, the better the chance he would be reunited with her. Those are both quite self-oriented motivations. But as his friend, John, also suggests to him at one point, they can be seen as an expression of defiance all their own, in that not only would he not be killed at the hands of the butchers that treated him as something subhuman, but he would persist beyond all their efforts to treat him as something less than, so that he could return to at least some part of the life that had been normal before they arrived. In that respect, it was a personal statement that represented all those who came through the Nazi effort to exterminate them; that no matter how hard they tried, Harry and his people would survive. That SS officer suggests to Harry that it's a choice between being the hammer or the anvil, but the anvil always survives the attempts by the hammer to reshape it, even if it leaves marks in the process.

It takes an actor of a certain magnetism to carry that role and I think Ben Foster and his driving eyes was an ideal choice. He was excellent as the younger brother in Hell or High Water and also steals a couple scenes as Charlie Prince in 3:10 to Yuma, which is a personal favorite. In this film, you're never in doubt that Harry is struggling with every breath as he yearns for his lost love, who had become the driving force of his life in the camps, and with the guilt that he carried from those camps, which is the weight that drags at his every step in the decades that followed. You can see his reluctance to get close to anyone, for fear of losing them like he lost Leah, but also perhaps for fear of infecting them with the remorse that he carries for being the survivor that he is. Vicky Krieps is also solid as the woman who tries to reach inside that shell, not out of pity, but because she can see the human and the very human choices that he made in order to be standing next to her in the first place. Similarly, Peter Sarsgaard gives a good turn as a reporter who can also see something more than just the brawler that Harry presents in the ring. I think Levinson borrowed somewhat from earlier films with the decision to show all of the flasbbacks to the camps in black-and-white, but it doesn't come across as trite. Also, Hans Zimmer's score is as brilliant as ever, following each scene with a sound that never loses poignancy, regardless of what's happening on the screen.

If you've been reading these for any stretch of time, you've probably come to understand that the storytelling approaches that most appeal to me are those that ask basic questions about humanity and how characters deal with those questions and the ripples that they leave, even in hammered steel. Definitely worth a watch.