The Believer (2001)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Henry Bean

Writers:

Henry Bean (screenplay)
Henry Bean (story) ...

Release Date:

23 August 2001 (Russia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young Jewish man develops a fiercely anti-Semitic worldview. Based on the true story of a KKK member in the 1960s who was revealed to be Jewish by a New York Times reporter.

Plot Keywords:

Jewish Community | Neo Nazi | Anti Semitic Slur | Anti Semitism | Assault

Awards:

5 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Ryan Gosling	...	Danny Balint
Peter Meadows	...	Orthodox Student
Garret Dillahunt	...	Billings
Kris Eivers	...	Carleton
Joel Garland	...	O.L.
Billy Zane	...	Curtis Zampf
Theresa Russell	...	Lina Moebius
Summer Phoenix	...	Carla Moebius
Jack Drummond	...	Old Coot
Sig Libowitz	...	Rav Zingesser
James G. McCaffrey	...	Young Avi
Jacob Green	...	Young Danny
Frank Winters	...	Young Stuart
Ronald Guttman	...	Danny's Father
Heather Goldenhersh	...	Linda

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexual content.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Hebrew

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Brazil:14 | France:U | Peru:18 | Spain:18 | UK:15 | USA:R | Australia:MA | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Fuller Films

Trivia:

Critically acclaimed, grand-jury prize winner at Sundance Festival in January 2001, then appeared on Showtime pay-cable in March 2002, before finally being released theatrically in NYC, May 2002.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the DVD version, the words "a decade" are silent in the phrase "The Thousand-Year Reich barely lasted a decade..." even though Zampf is still mouthing it.

Quotes:

Rav Zingesser: And you, had you come out of Egypt you would have been destroyed in the desert with all of those who worshipped the Golden Calf!
Young Danny: Then let him destroy me now. Let him crush me like the conceited bully he is.
[looks up]
Young Danny: Go ahead.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Anatomy of a Scene: The Believer" (????)

God said to Abraham:kill me a son!

Antisemitism has come a long way since "gentleman's agreement"(1947).Kazan's attempt seems rather timid and tame today."The believer " sets the record straight.It's one of the most convincing works in the field.

It's all the more disturbing as the hero is a Jew joining the neonazis.And his behavior stems from his own education,his rebellion against the Torah:Abraham did really kill his own son,the Jew was made to comply with God's commandments;the hero finds similarities between the Nazis's and the Jews's beliefs ;both are the Chosen ones .What puzzles me is the fact that he wants to annihilate the Jews ,but he stills reads (and respects) the Bible(One shall not be naked in front of it for flesh is impure).

His arguments are sometimes disquieting (hints at Marx,Freud and Einstein) but finally it boils down to "we hate the Jews because we have to".

Danny is definitely a complex character,caught in a web of contradictions.One of the strongest scenes shows former victims of the Nazis during WW2;it's of course with them that we side ,and whatever Danny says about how he despises their passivity ,his protected life makes him incapable of true grit.

Spoilers Danny's final sacrifice is revealing:if God's wrath had killed him as pharaoh's tribe drowned in the tide (eg if he had accidentally been killed during one of his terrorisma acts or sentenced to death by a human court),the movie would have been a religious one (God's victory on evil).Danny chose the other way out.They will be speaking for a long time of the final sequence :it resembles an atheist version of that of "Jacob's ladder".The stairs and the teacher's sentence have something of Borges.End of spoilers.

To say that "the believer" is unique is to state the obvious.Even more intriguing,the most celebrated names (Theresa Russel and Billy Zane) are only supporting actors.At a time when graveyards are often profaned,when the far right wing's bad moon is on the rise almost everywhere ,this kind of film has become a necessity.Henry Bean is a very clever director and I hope to see more of his films in the future.