The Believer opens after lengthy controversy
Non-judgmental portrayal of Jewish Neo-Nazi incites debate
REVIEW
THE BELIEVER
Starring Ryan Gosling, Theresa Russell and Summer Phoenix
Written and directed by Henry Bean
Opens Friday, September 27
Uptown Screen
Making, perhaps, a more profound statement about the conservative Hollywood establishment than it does about anti-Semitism, director Henry Bean's controversial film The Believer finally gets its long overdue day on the silver screen
An unnerving portrait of an articulate and intelligent Jewish Neo-Nazi, who at once loves and loathes his religion and himself, the film was considered touchy subject matter by interested studios. And, after negative feedback from the powerful Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, the prospect of a distribution deal for the film (which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance film fest) vanished. With no studio willing to touch it, The Believer vanquished in limbo, spurring some critics to dub it as the best film of the year that audiences would never get the chance to see.
Luckily, after a brief stint on U.S. cable, indie distributors Fireworks Pictures (in the U.S.) and TVA Films (in Canada) picked up the feature and are now releasing it, more than a year after its debut at Sundance. So, the question remains, what is it about The Believer that inspired studio heads and members of the Jewish community to consider it to be so dangerous?
Starring the up-and-coming Ryan Gosling (who turns in a career-making performance as the volatile and tortured Daniel Balint), The Believer tackles its subject matter from an unusual angle, working to get its audience to identify and even sympathize with its disturbing central character. Unwilling to accept both Judaic law and the Jew's place in history, Danny lashes out at a religion and a people he deems weak and subservient. Questioning why he should obey and worship a wrathful God, Danny becomes obsessed with fighting against "Jewish passivity" as it is expressed in the religion and documented by the Jews' fate in the Second World War.
Based loosely on a true story that involved a Jewish boy who appeared at a Ku Klux Klan rally and then committed suicide after the New York Times published an article revealing his identity, The Believer paints Danny as a young man propelled in two opposing directions – a person who both loves and hates who he is and what he holds most dear. Focusing on Danny's life as a skinhead, the film documents the boy's rapid advancement within a right-wing fascist group led by upper-class intellectuals (played by Theresa Russell and Billy Zane). But as Danny becomes more involved with the Neo-Nazi group, he is inexplicably drawn back to his religion. Maintaining an impossible and contradictory existence, the most poignant example of Danny's defeatist activities comes when he salvages a Torah from a temple he has attempted to bomb with his skinhead friends.
Ultimately, The Believer raises eyebrows because it doesn't overtly condemn Danny. Bean, who both wrote and directed the feature, is fascinated with a number of issues, among them, the particulars of Judaism. But, more profoundly, he looks at the way in which Jews, and by extension all people, are consumed with an element of self-hatred. It's this uncomfortable notion – that we are always in the process of running away from the very thing that defines us – which is at the heart of this film.
The fact that the Wiesenthal Center, and other viewers, would declare The Believer a film that promotes anti-Semitism is a testament to the fact that there are those who continually insist on being spoon-fed their cinema. Because The Believer approaches the subject of hatred by asking why it exists instead of merely condemning its existence, the film has been sorely misidentified by a public unaccustomed to thinking at the movies. For those lucky enough to catch it, Bean’s compelling feature reminds us that going to the movies can be an invigorating and enlightening experience. |
