The Boxer and Death

Fresh from the archives in a sparkling new print, this long overlooked classic from Czechoslovakia hasn't aged a day in the decades since it was made. With a bitter but masterful sense of irony it tells the story of a Slovakian inmate of a Nazi prison camp, who finds himself spared from the ovens but forced into an even worse predicament: he's fattened up to act as a sparring partner for the camp's amateur boxer commandant. The stark black and white realism of the film belies the often complex, co-dependent relationship between the two men. For the prisoner Kominek every boxing lesson becomes a contest between pride and humiliation, pitting his will to survive (i.e. take a beating) against his urge to KO an inferior opponent, and certainly die as a result. For the commandant Kraft (translation: Power) it's an ideal opportunity to exercise his notions of fair play and good sportsmanship, two concepts which become all the more warped and inhuman as smoke from the crematoriums fills the sky overhead.

"Boxer a smrt" is one of the greatest boxing movies ever made. It kind of reflects the old boxing saw that the "good big man will always beat the good small man." We can predict from the opening credits that the concentration camp commander is not nearly as good of a boxer as the prisoner. Yet, it is very interesting to watch the spectacle of the two men with dramatically different stations in the concentration camp meeting and then taking up the gloves against each other.

Kopinek (played by Stefan Kvietik) initially cannot last a round. Eventually he looks pretty damn good on his feet. The wonder of this film is that Kraft (i.e., Manfred Krug), in the interest of "sport", allows Kopinek to get stronger and to actually fight back. However, Kraft is a cold-blooded killer and we never know how far Kopinek can go until the film's end.