Ben Foster portrays Jewish Polish boxer Harry Haft in THE SURVIVOR, now streaming on HBO Max. Courtesy of HBO Max.The year is 1949. Harry Haft (Ben Foster) is a Jewish Polish boxer living in Coney Island, NY. It has been four years since the United States declared victory over the Axis powers. Occasionally, Haft will attend the Union of Polish Jews up the street for a drink or two, but he doesn’t seem to be religious. He can’t even step inside a synagogue. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to enjoy boxing either. There is an emptiness in his eyes when he punches his opponent, a listless, apathetic feeling across his visage. For Harry, boxing was his only tool to survive while he was an inmate at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Based on a true story, The Survivor, directed by Academy Award winner Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog) and presented in association with the USC Shoah Foundation, premiered on HBO Max last April, in commemoration of Yom HaShoah. It made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021 and has been acclaimed by critics abroad. The film is gritty, emotional, and as raw as Holocaust movies get. Levinson doesn’t shy away from illustrating the capricious terror of the Shoah, with sequences shocking and reminiscent of Schindler’s List (1993). HBO Max, a “provocateur” of a network, if I do say so myself, is a more than suitable choice for debuting this film.
Levinson’s decision to have the film set across three time periods in Haft’s life makes it all the more unique. The Survivor features absolutely gut-wrenching flashbacks of the boxer’s life in the camps, but the majority of it is set in 1949, with other portions set years later in 1963. Haft, known across town as the “Survivor of Auschwitz,” lost his family in the Holocaust and was spared, oddly enough, by a Nazi officer, Schneider (Billy Magnussen). After seeing Haft beat up an officer, Schneider takes him aside and offers him survival if he agrees to participate in the camp’s boxing matches with other inmates. For the Nazis, this is all for sick entertainment. For the inmates, if you lose the match, you get killed. It is a literal fight or die game.
The thing about Haft is that he shows no fear. At one point, he even reprimands Schneider and demands he call him by his real name. He didn’t even care about beating up a Nazi officer in public. For him, as well as so many inmates, there’s no fear left. He isn’t scared of the consequences because this has been his life for too long now. Every day is a threat for these inmates. They are accustomed to this reality where they could wake up any day and get killed in camp.
Schneider, like most Nazis, kills for his country. He even claims he doesn’t even enjoy what he does, but he has to do it because it’s “inevitable.”
“All great empires are built off of destruction from other people.” he tells Haft one evening, trying to justify his actions.
Magnussen, an actor better known for his comedic roles in films like Into the Woods (2014) and Game Night (2018), gives his character a full personality, unlike some other Nazi characters we have seen portrayed onscreen. He isn’t just your usual “evil Nazi” we see in Holocaust cinema with an over-the-top German accent. Schneider is a sadist, but also someone who has become so brainwashed by Hitler’s ideology that his reasoning for killing is all the more pathetic.
Haft faces both wrath and fear from his fellow inmates. This is made worse after the camps when Emory (Peter Sarsgaard), a local journalist, reaches out to Haft to learn more about how he survived. The newspaper then misleadingly titles that Haft “boxed for the Nazis,” creating more contempt for him in his Coney Island Jewish community.
Throughout the movie, Haft’s main goal is to locate his long-lost love, Leah (Dar Zuzovsky), who he believes survived the camps. He thinks that by boxing heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, this will give him more national coverage, offering Leah a chance to find him. Haft also seeks the help of a kind woman named Miriam (Vicky Krieps) who works for an agency that helps locate lost people from the war. Suffering from tragedy herself (her fiancé was killed in the Pacific, she tells Haft), Miriam is understanding of Haft’s trauma, but she is also able to put him in his place if he’s crossed a line. He doesn’t deserve to be an “ass*ole”, she tells him in one scene, just because he’s a Holocaust survivor.
The film jumps across different periods of Haft’s life, from his torment in the camp to the 1960s. One might call this a love story about someone trying to find his lover, but it’s not quite so. The theme of the movie is in the title itself: survival. This isn’t just about Haft’s survival under a Nazi. It’s about his survival post-Holocaust.
“You need to forget. When you forget enough, it will be all gone.” someone tells Haft early in the film.
Well, that’s impossible! With expert editing by Douglas Crise, The Survivor seamlessly weaves together moments of Haft’s PTSD. When he is practicing for a match and gets startled by fireworks nearby, he drops to the ground and freezes, reminded of the bombs and airplanes that raided his camp at one point. Even when one of Haft’s trainers, Louis (Paul Bates), celebrates him by calling him an “animal,” he is immediately distraught and races to the locker room. “Animal” is what the Nazis would chant at Haft and his fellow inmates while they boxed. Even if Haft cracks a joke in a daily conversation, it’s a nice icebreaker, but after a minute or so, that smile on his face fades away. Humor, for someone like Haft and so many survivors, is only ephemeral. The memories will always come back.
The Survivor’s biggest strength is Ben Foster, a remarkable actor who has been around for so long and yet his talent is often never praised as highly as it should be. He is a true thespian, someone who takes on a role and loses himself in it at the snap of his fingers. I remember first seeing Foster onscreen in Alpha Dog (2006), another true story – he ironically also plays a Jew – about a group of nihilistic, party raging 20somethings in Claremont, CA who kidnap a teenage boy whose brother owes them money. Foster is terrifying¸ a vicious beast caged up and ready to attack. There is one scene that always sticks with me. His character walks into a party and begins beating the you-know-what out of everyone, including women. Side note: Alpha Dog is VERY intense!
Foster demonstrates his dedication to his role with his shocking physical transformation in The Survivor. Oh no, those aren’t special effects. Haft was a Holocaust survivor and so the actor willingly lost a dangerous amount of weight to portray the emaciated inmate. Haft is bruised and red throughout the movie, so much so that you forget this is an actor in makeup. Even after surviving Auschwitz, Haft still looks like he’s on the brink of death.
What is equally impressing is Levinson’s handling of post-Holocaust life in the United States. The production design and cinematography, including stunning black and white sequences when Haft is in Auschwitz, are first-rate, but it’s the awkward, social acceptance from individuals that stand out in the film. It feels rare to see a movie that is set just after the Holocaust, not during or years and years later. In Haft’s life, people don’t quite understand the boundaries of their words. They know about the slaughter of the Jews, but they didn’t witness it, and we all know this is many years before social media when people could be made aware of life’s atrocities more quickly. It is as if individuals approach Haft and say, “I’m so sorry about what happened, but let’s move onto business now.”
It’s not OK to say something like that. It’s not OK, for example, for Emory to imply if Haft actually respected the Nazi who took him under his wing. “Even a beaten dog loves his master.” he tells him. There is also a subtle desire to forget about the past, perhaps to make it easier for oneself.
“It’s a sad history. We’re always the fuc*ing punching bag.” says Charley (Danny DeVito), another of Haft’s trainers. He follows up by confessing that his real name is Israel…and that Haft keep it a secret. Even after the war, there was still that fear, that stigma that to be Jewish in America was to be singled out or stared at differently. For reasons different from Haft, it’s as if everyone was struggling to survive after the war. The pain, the trauma, the tragedy, all of it is still there.
The Survival can be a very tough watch, and there is a scene in the last half of the movie that is so heartbreaking, I had to cover my eyes. Featuring a powerful lead performance and exquisite cinematography, Levinson’s drama is a reminder for all of us to put ourselves in the shoes of survivors and feel empathy. Not just sympathy, but real, compassionate empathy. For Haft and the other survivors of the Shoah, none of us can relate to their pain. What we can do is listen. May the stories of survivors never fade away.
The Survivor is now streaming on HBO Max.