‘The Survivor’ Review: Barry Levinson Directs Ben Foster to a Career-Best Performance [TIFF 2021]
IT LEANS HEAVILY ON THE SHOULDERS OF ITS INFLUENCES, AND the STORY GETS A LITTLE SHAKY, BUT 'THE SURVIVOR' IS BARRY LEVINSON'S BEST FILM IN OVER TWENTY YEARS.
The tragedy of the Holocaust, and the stories of survival that rose from it, have been widely - and justifiably - documented. History itself has ensured that the atrocities, the camps, the genocide, will never be forgotten; cinema has attempted to do its own part in aid of that goal. Whether it be the harrowing nine-hour documentary “Shoah,” the unrelenting dramatization of the horror in “Schindler’s List,” or the over-the-shoulder display of how Jews were forced to aid in the horrors in “Son of Saul,” there will always be a different perspective to show of the Holocaust, a different survivor’s story, and every last one is worthy of being told.
Barry Levinson, having been born in Baltimore three months after the Wannsee Conference occurred on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, may have been spared the direct horrors of the Holocaust, yet has not shied away from further amplifying the voice of its victims and survivors alike, just as Lanzmann and Spielberg and Nemes did before him. Levinson’s latest film, “The Survivor,” tells the story of Harry Haft (Ben Foster), an Auschwitz survivor who briefly became a professional boxer in the United States at the end of the 1940s. Harry's path to boxing began in a horrifying way, in Auschwitz, where he was forced to fight other Jews to the death in boxing matches so as to entertain the Nazis.
The Survivor doesn't begin nor spend most of its time in the camps, instead weaving between three points in Harry's life. The narrative is first set in 1963, where Harry has a family and is long removed from the Holocaust while simultaneously inseparable from it. The largest portion of the story takes place in 1949, with Harry - after a sudden collapse of his win-loss record - pushes to fight Rocky Marciano for the publicity, in the hope that it will reconnect him with the woman he loved before the Nazis separated them. And, finally, we do end up flashing back to Harry in Auschwitz, in the waning days of the war, emaciated and literally fighting for his life. In each of these three segments, Ben Foster undergoes nothing short of a physical transformation. In the 1949 scenes, Foster is more or less at his most recognizable, save for some combination of makeup and/or facial prosthetics in order to more closely resemble Harry, but in the Auschwitz scenes, which were shot first, Foster is more than 60 pounds lighter - every single one of those pounds lost by Foster for real at his own insistence rather than achieved by CGI - and in the 1963 scenes, Harry is somewhat heavyset entering his 40s, Foster having not only regained the weight he lost, but having added more on in service of the character. It’s a total embodiment of a performance to a level I don’t think we’ve seen since Daniel Day-Lewis donned the hat of Abraham Lincoln, and Foster deserves all the credit for the work put into it; thankfully, none of it was wasted, as his collaboration with Levinson allows him to fully utilize both his talents and his effort.
Any film made about the Holocaust from now to the end of time is probably going to find itself put in the same sentence as "Schindler's List," and Levinson certainly draws upon Spielberg’s opus as a stylistic influence. Most tellingly, the scenes set during the Holocaust are in a crisp black-and-white, whereas the scenes set afterwards are in color, with cinematographer George Steel once again proving that he can render just about any period in time with an evocative and stunning attention to detail. To achieve this in any given scene is a feat; to do it split between two ends of a 14-year period where the entire aesthetic of the world changed so radically is a triumph. There’s also a minor debt owed to Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece “Raging Bull,” another black-and-white film with a heavy emphasis on boxing, where Levinson shoots each fight - whether it’s the fight with Marciano, or each of the horrifying bouts in Auschwitz - differently depending on what is happening in the story and where Harry is as a character, a technique that is directly lifted from Raging Bull. Out of these black-and-white sequences, however, also comes a gripping character dynamic between Harry and Dietrich Schneider (Billy Magnussen), a scenery-chewing, albeit fictional, Nazi commandant at Auschwitz who is played by Magnussen in the vein of Ralph Fiennes’ interpretation of Amon Göth. Schneider is shown to be as unsympathetic and despicable as anyone who ran a concentration camp should be, but his arc with Harry remains as engaging as Fiennes’ interactions were with Liam Neeson. After all, Schneider is the one who initially puts Harry in a boxing ring against other Jews, and revels in his brutality despite a mantra that he is just doing “his duty,” and yet Harry engages with him on a deep philosophical level that could have served as the basis for an entire film of its own. Magnussen, always a dependable character actor who has never gotten the accolades he deserves, finds a new level with this performance and should really be in the conversation for Best Supporting Actor as we enter into awards season.
On the far side of the Holocaust, however, The Survivor remains an acting powerhouse. Foster’s physical embodiment of Harry Haft is matched by a layered, understated performance that often has to balance multiple emotions at once, and never loses an ounce of sincerity or conviction. Foster does incredible work in the Holocaust scenes, but it is in the years after, such when Harry suffers an attack of PTSD, or when he receives a piece of news about his lost love, that Foster goes into superlative territory. Even in the performance’s larger moments, it never really ‘goes big’, with Foster instead displaying a controlled fury, or grief, or elation, depending on what is happening around him. It is, in every scene, a masterclass in acting, and where Magnussen deserves to be in the conversation about Best Supporting Actor, if Foster doesn’t outright get a nomination for Best Actor, something is broken in the Academy. Vicky Krieps, playing Harry’s wife Miriam, counters Foster’s performance with an unfailing delicateness, being patient with her dialogue and being both sensitive and finely aware of the work being done by her scene partner. This is something Krieps has excelled at in most if not all of her performances across an incredibly prolific career, and which she does not get enough attention for. It might not be the kind of headline-grabbing work that builds a shelf of Oscars - the great Claude Rains’ performances had many of the same qualities, and he never won one - but it is a type of acting the existence of which is essential and an execution of the craft at the highest level. Danny DeVito provides a level of comic relief as Marciano’s manager, who secretly trains Harry for a few days so that he can ‘survive’ the fight. This training interlude lets the film breathe between Holocaust flashbacks, and while it maybe overcompensates with one or two too many gags, it allows the movie to ebb and flow nicely. Special notice needs to also be given to Kingston Vernes, 11-years-old at the time The Survivor was filmed, who plays Harry’s son Alan. Vernes has very little dialogue as a young boy contending with his father’s grief, but rather than just fade into the background, Vernes gives a very expressive performance mostly with his eyes. It’s a remarkable performance for someone so young, presenting Vernes as a name to watch out for in the coming years.
Overall, The Survivor is one of the most vital entries to come out of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It’s not, strictly speaking, a Holocaust film, but with it, Barry Levinson has nonetheless created something that both acknowledges the horrors and atrocities of that point in history, while also looking forward with hope for survivors and their families. Ben Foster’s lead performance is a monumental tour de force. Awards might not be why art is created, but despite that, if ever the man deserved attention from the Oscars, this would be the time to give it to him. Because of Foster’s work, in tandem with a hard-hitting script from Justine Juel Gillmer and gripping direction, The Survivor is Levinson’s finest 21st century film, easily his best since “Wag the Dog” and perhaps even his best since 1988’s “Rain Man.” Just as was the case with the latter, don’t be surprised if The Survivor earns a slot in the Best Picture category as well.