| Triumph of the Spirit |  | Director: Robert M. Young
Actors: Willem Dafoe, Edward James Olmos, Robert Loggia, Wendy Gazelle, Kelly Wolf
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $13.51
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New (12) from $13.95
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 18,608
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0792852257
UPC: 027616874870
EAN: 9780792852254
ASIN: B00005V9HN
Theatrical Release Date: 1989
Release Date: April 16, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Description
OscarÂ(r) nominees* Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire, Platoon), Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver) and Robert Loggia (Jagged Edge) deliver "performances [that] will astonish you" (Jeffrey Lyons) in this "extraordinary" (The Wall Street Journal) story of life, death and conscience. It "may be one of the most powerful films you will see in a lifetime" (KABC-TV). And most incredible of all, it's true! World War II was the time. Auschwitz was the place. Survival was the prize. Boxer Salamo Arouch (Dafoe) is interned in the Nazi death campwith his family and friends. For the amusement of his captors, Salamo is forced to fight his fellowinmates brutal contests that send the loser to the gas showers. Salamo's prowess in the ring is both his salvation and his nightmare, as his "victories" condemn others to death. Still he fights on, hoping he might somehow save his father his friends perhaps even his soul. *Dafoe: Supporting Actor, Shadow of the Vampire (2000); Supporting Actor, Platoon (1986); Olmos: Actor, Stand and Deliver (1988); Loggia: Supporting Actor, Jagged Edge (1985)
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
Gripping portrayal of a Jewish Greek boxer's experiences in Auschwitz during WW II June 5, 2010
z hayes (TX)
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
 Powerfull June 3, 2009
Brian Sternberg
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
 [Two-and-a-half stars out of four] Nice emotional story, but more fiction than truth here May 15, 2009
Ricahrd A. Salzer (Chesapeake, Virginia, USA)
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
The real Salamo Arouch story in REAL life,
not the Hollyweird version is quite a bit
different. There were no boxing mathces at
Auschwitz, but there were two Olympic sized
pools [See Swedish jewish Revisionist Ditlieb
Felderer's writings, his parents were inter-
ned there for four months in 1943...]. Arouch,
from Greece was deported to Auschwitz, the pol-
ish camp and all of his family died there of
typhus, not the phoney non-existent 'gas cham-
bers' we've heard allllll ABOUT (AD NUSEUM) FOR
decades. It's sad those things happened, but
that doesn't mean we're all required to believe
jewish miracle stories just because James Olmos
and Willem Dafoe star in movies about them! Caveat
Emptor!
I even use this at school! May 9, 2009
Middy (PA USA)
This movie really gives a well done, honest, but tastefully done view of the Jewish WWII experience. Anne Frank is wonderful, but this gives a new perspective and a new face of the crimes of the time.
The Truth Will Set You Free April 30, 2009
MarieLover (California)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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