The Survivor

Ben foster is one of the best young actors. If you've seen his movies you will know. His transformation in this movie from the black and white to the color is incredible. It doesn't even look like him. All the other actors were great. The story was a good one but yes had some slow parts. But the parts of the camp were great. So much feeling all the way til the end which was really messed up. The things they made people do was sick. But this is our history unfortunately. Definitely worth a watch.

The survivor doesn't have the sparkling spectacles of liberation but it got a clear revelation of survivor's day-to-day trauma. What's remarkable about this story is how it translates to modern lives dwelling in the cutthroat society, the guilt, helplessness and questionable consciences when thrown together produces a truly dramatic visualization of a life lived in two extremes in two different eras. Hertzka's painful struggle to start his life from where it was uprooted and Schneider's sociopathic obsession to live on his desires is a clear provocative constrasts. The remarkable performances, flawless story and clever visual set-up put this movie higher up in ranks.

The Survivor provides a fresh perspective on a known atrocity. Narratives surrounding the Holocaust are often meaningful, but this adds tragic layers of survivor's guilt and complicated love. Ben Foster (who is underappreciated) gives a conflicted and vulnerable performance while also sacrificing his body for the role. The third act awkwardly shifts away from boxing and the dialogue is straightforward, but the plot remains extremely humanizing. By maintaining a small scale and examining the protagonist's complexity, The Survivor makes unbelievable horrors relatable and recontextualizes a desensitized story. For that, the film stands out and succeeds.

Technically, The Survivor is mixed. The production switches eras and settings. The effects enhance aging and violence. Plus, there are emotional songs sung by characters, and moments of cinematic focus, angles, composition, and motion. Still, it's the sound (using abstract stings, J-cuts, and silence) and the editing (using smash cuts, match cuts, and wipes) that are the highlights here. Conversely, the lighting makes mistakes, the pacing is clunky, and the production is overly clean. Overall, The Survivor possesses strengths but never transcends its parts. It has important source material and a powerful lead, yet The Survivor's safe filmmaking limits its ceiling.

Writing: 9/10 Direction: 6/10 Cinematography: 7/10 Acting: 9/10 Editing: 7/10 Sound: 8/10 Score/Soundtrack: 7/10 Production Design: 8/10 Casting: 7/10 Effects: 7/10

Overall Score: 7.5/10.

They DO still make good movies. This is one, & i can understand many folk rating it a 10 Films based on truth are always good very well acted and good to see danny divito in a serious role.

Good movie I would recommend. But directors left out quite some stuff about his life. Could have filled the second part with it. Learning about real-life Harry Haft gives him more complexity as a person. The following is one of the things that's left out:

'The elderly couple harbored Harry Haft in their small farmhouse, believing he was an injured German soldier who had been separated from his unit. Haft killed the couple the following morning after the husband began to badger him with questions about his eyepatch and whether he was German. Haft feared that they would turn him in to German authorities. He collected food from their kitchen and ran off and hid in the Bohemian Forest for weeks.

Eventually, he ran out of food and searched for another farm. He again had the same plan of telling the owners that he was an injured German soldier who had been separated from his unit. When a middle-aged woman answered the door, she could immediately see that he was an imposter and called him out for it. "You're not a soldier. You're not even German," she told him. Stricken with fear that she would turn him in, he went into a blind rage and pulled out his revolver and shot the woman. He headed to the kitchen to steal food when he heard a noise. He found a boy of about 12 years of age, presumably the woman's son, hiding in a bedroom closet. Haft told the boy to stay in the closet and then he quickly fled the house.'