Alyssa Black (Aly200) Throughout history many have preferred to forget the atrocities of the Holocaust during World War II. However Hollywood has helped to keep this important event alive thanks to films like "Life is Beautiful", "Schindler's List" and "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", but sometimes there are stories that go unrecognized or forgotten. Director Robert M. Young decided to take the lesser known story of Holocaust survivor Salamo Arouch and bring it to the masses.Salamo and his family (heritage of Jewish Greeks) are first seen living their lives happily just before the Nazis invade their village and ship the Jewish citizens off to concentration camps, specifically the dreaded Auschwitz. The film follows the Arouch family's struggle to struggle, specifically showing the male members of the family and also the perspectives of Allegra, Salamo's fiancée, and her sister on the women's side of Auschwitz. In the pivotal role of Salamo is an underrated performance by A-list star Willem Dafoe. Portraying a strong-willed survivor, but also a man who loses nearly every person he loves, the emotion of Dafoe's performance is raw and heartbreaking. Going from a carefree man with the world in the palm of his hand to a prisoner fighting (literally) to survive the harsh environment of Auschwitz. Dafoe's costar chemistry is in top form from a touchingly sweet affection for Wendy Gazelle as Allegra, a believable son to Robert Loggia who plays his father and a tenuous friendship with Edward James Olmos as Gypsy, the officer who aids Salamo by giving him a chance to use his boxing talents as well as a better (using the term loosely) job within the camp due to Salamo's consistent winning streak. Dafoe is an adept fighter, with a naturally thin frame and limber muscle, the actor demonstrates adept skill in the boxing arena. However as things grow from bad to worse for Salamo, Dafoe portrays the right amount of emotion that expresses the character's inner pain such as the horrible losses of his brother (shot for refusing to work in the crematorium) and father (executed in the gas chamber due to his age and no longer useful for labor to the officers of the camp), and fear at never seeing his beloved Allegra again. By the film's close we are as exhausted as Salamo and hope for a happy ending after so much horror.The film's narrative is quite dark and depressing due to the subject of the Holocaust and its atrocious violence. Prisoners were forced to march for hours on end, beaten if they tried to seek additional food or refusal to cooperate, many were shot and gassed if their usefulness had ended and there is the violence of the boxing ring when we watch our protagonist fight. It gets bloody and exhausting as we hope that things can't get worse for the characters, but knowing the history of what occurred during the Holocaust we know it is far from over until the Allied Powers finally liberated the camp in 1944.See this film as soon as you can, but keep some tissues on standby cause this is gonna make you cry.

Agniv Sen Let us face it, holocaust surrounding second world war and the Nazi torture of Jews have become a thoroughly over-explored topic. Done to death, yes, but this movie came out in 1989! There was no Schindler's List, no Sorstalanság, no Boy in Striped Pyjama or Life is Beautiful... hell, even Europa Europa or the Last Butterfly released after this movie!So, Triumph of the Spirit could easily have been a reference material for many a modern classic on holocaust. Even when seen as a standalone movie without the predecessors or successors, this is a good movie. The story is based on true incidents, hence it is quite interesting; historically - almost accurate and direction wise - at par with the best. Most of the characters had been explored richly and the cause- effect relationship behind every sub-plot is quite pronounced. The movie never borders on obscurity, yet ends it with a depth that is so often lacking in movies based on real life. Performance wise Willem Dafoe and Robert Loggia stands out magnificently. Everyone else does their bit to perfection... no hiccups in acting. Sometimes, a bit of production value is missing that we are so used to these days. (Like in the air-raid scene towards the end, any typical Hollywood movie these days would have wonderful SFX showing allied aircrafts and what not... but here it was just the sound Foley and a bit of pyrotechnic... quite old school but very effective).If you are a true movie buff and looking forward to relive the 80s style of movie production, go for it. You won't be disappointed.

Michael Neumann The true story of Greek boxer and Holocaust survivor Salamo Arouch mercifully avoids the Rocky-goes-to-Auschwitz game, but it does make the tactical error of turning life in a Nazi death camp into little more than a tear-jerking melodrama. The against-the-odds implications of the title (a clever inversion of Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will') are also misleading, since outside of a few token bouts for the entertainment of German officers the ironies of the fight-to-survive boxing scenario are all but ignored.The film's principle distinction is that was shot on location at Auschwitz-Birkenau, unhappily so, because the disturbing authenticity of the setting only emphasizes the superficiality of the story. No amount of watered down histrionics could ever communicate the true horror of the Holocaust, and in real life there was no stirring, Dolby-stereo music score to accompany the prisoners into the gas chambers, and no tactful cutting away to the next scene at the last moment. Sincere intentions only make it a bogus David vs. Goliath fable, set (and photographed) in Hell.Note: see 'The Boxer and Death' (1963, Czechoslovakia) for a more honest, ambiguous, and compelling treatment of essentially the same story.

John Bale Triumph of the Spirit takes an uncompromising view of the horrors of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, dealing with the fate of Greek gypsies, and particularly a boxing Champion Salamo Arouch who fights to amuse the brutal Nazi Officers, enabling his father's and his own survival. He was allowed life while his losing opponents perished. Based on a true story, without doubt the most devastating film ever made on the topic of death camps, it is extremely realistic in its presentation having been filmed in the bleak winter of 1989 on location in Auschwitz, and that shows. It must have effected the cast and the crew extremely. Willem Defoe's performance proves the depth of feeling that was thus achieved, and this is reflected by the whole cast. Certainly not an easy film to watch, but it is rewarding and extremely moving to those who make the effort. Perhaps in some small way this film might prevent such evil being perpetrated on the world again. A remarkable achievement that predates and eclipses Schindler's List, yet sadly not widely shown.