“Triumph of the Heart,” a new film about Catholic friar Maximillian Kolbe’s murder in Auschwitz, strives to be a universal story of hope. While it technically excels as a period piece, its effectiveness will largely depend on the viewer’s ability to embrace, or look past, its deeply religious undertones.
On Sept. 8, UTD’s Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies hosted the U.S. premiere for the film in the BAHT building, the first time the center has hosted a film premiere. With a red carpet, afterparty, private screening and black-tie optional dress code, the event emanated opulence. Guest speakers, including actor Michael Iskander from the Amazon Prime series “House of David,” introduced the movie by detailing the story’s significance to their own life.
During the film, the room’s emotions fluctuated dramatically between laughter at the intermittent jokes to tears at the end of the film. And after the two and a half hours of runtime and a few more speeches, the director and producer personally thanked the attendees and answered questions from curious audience members.
The film is a Holocaust story of prisoners finding hope despite their slowly encroaching deaths and excels in creating a period piece embodying feature film culture with explorative storytelling, incredible camerawork and mood-matching color grading. Like any period piece, the film takes a few creative liberties in adapting this story to film while adding in its own Catholic flair as well.
The movie follows Kolbe, a friar imprisoned in Auschwitz in World War II, over two weeks during his time at the camp. What made the film a worthy watch was the story of how faith drove a perseverance so strong it delayed death beyond what people thought was humanly possible. The story revolves around 10 prisoners, all randomly selected except for Kolbe, who volunteered to save a prisoner abused by Nazi guards. The prisoners were sent together into confinement without food and water in an attempt to torture out the truth about the whereabouts of an escapee. Faced with imminent death, the prisoners begin lashing out in helplessness, before Kolbe helps steer them into civil disobedience against the officers with a newfound hope for life or salvation. The real-life Kolbe instilled his optimism and faith in those around him, and this movie attempts to recreate that moment with Kolbe instilling hope in the audience.
The real-life Kolbe instilled his optimism and faith in those around him, and this movie attempts to recreate that moment with Kolbe instilling hope in the audience.
While a true story about determination on the surface, “Triumph of the Heart” is a production from multiple Catholic-backed organizations, producers and directors aiming to emphasize this as a distinctly Catholic story. The connection from Kolbe’s resolve to a reliance on God through Catholicism seems to be a far stretch from the other strong qualities that represented who Kolbe was.
Director Anthony D’Ambrosio put this film out to the public because he believes that “we are living in a … silent crisis of hope … We don’t know how to love and we’ve lost our ability to make meaning in suffering.” For the director, the story of Saint Kolbe “really helped [him] to make [his] way through” a hard time in his life.
We don’t know how to love and we’ve lost our ability to make meaning in suffering.
“I just found it to be something that was healing… [and] that I could offer that to other people through the movie,” D’Ambrosio said.
Hope and resolve can come from a variety of secular sources and experiences in one’s life. The director himself never emphasized Catholicism as the mode for bringing hope to the audience, and the film was made to inspire hope in a broad audience. It does so by highlighting that, despite the death of all 10 prisoners, the protagonists ultimately win because their resistance against guards left and impact and motivated themselves to push through struggles.
“A good number of the actors are not churched … They found tremendous meaning in this story and they’re not coming from a religious background,” executive producer Marcellino D’Ambrosio said. Regarding an atheist audience, he said that “the audience ought to be able to find hope in it.”
Unlike other films where the message inspiring hope and faith needs hope and faith, thus failing to inspire a secular audience, “Triumph of the Heart” portrays a deeply human figure whose actions are the inspiration and the religion is the backstory. The issue for a secular audience is the inability to properly grasp the symbolism of moments like Mary trampling a serpent. These scenes can distract many unaware of their meaning but are deeply valuable to those of Kolbe’s faith. The film, if produced with a secular mindset and less religious symbolism, could have still focused on Kolbe and his nine fictitious cellmates to more clearly paint an enthralling story of a victory in rebellion through hope, despite ultimate death.
Symbolic metaphors aside, the film excels in storytelling that enhances character depth with tasteful flashbacks to reveal more about supporting roles. Unlike many other feature films, this film struck a balance between slowly trudging and speedily unfollowable narratives. Never once did I feel that a scene lacked significance, was drawn out or required more elaboration — perfect pacing. Despite some drawbacks in the message’s presentation, this movie nails the fundamentals. While I might not have felt the religiously-driven perseverance, confidence and hope that Catholic viewers did, I felt proud that an excellent production team could be seen regardless.
Never once did I feel that a scene lacked significance, was drawn out or required more elaboration — perfect pacing.
The most noticeable change for the masses is that the film sports a squarer 4:3 aspect ratio, as opposed to the modern 21:9 widescreen. This clever directorial decision subtracts from a distractingly wide set to push gaze to the center of the screen and frame the characters. Aspect ratios like this are typical to films made in the early to mid-20th century, matching the style of the period this movie depicts.
The lighting and color grading in every scene adds emotional depth to the characters in it. Light rays create a dramatic feel to indoor scenes while shifting them closer to the ethereal, religious feel that directors and producers strove for. Colors subtly vary to emphasize the emotions, mood and motivations of the character on screen. The cell has a drab, desaturated tone to represent the morbidity prisoners face between those concrete walls. Nazi officer Karl Fritzsch, the main antagonist, is given cooler and harsher scenes to exemplify his cold-hearted actions, such as when he extends Kolbe’s imprisonment after his actions inspire prisoner disobedience. Fritzsch’s scenes contrast the warm yellows and dark backdrop shown when a prisoner dies and reaches salvation because of their interactions with saints.
The nine side characters are based around Kolbe’s cellmates, but their original lives are not well known. To properly capture the premonitions of the cellmates and Kolbe’s influence, the executive producer mentioned he ensured that the “movie actually aligned with primary sources about the main character and his companions in the cell.”
While focusing on Kolbe, the film gives brief windows to explore the background of side characters to establish fundamental events that formed their unique perspectives on their dreary confinement. Kolbe is depicted as a man with flaws, regrets, aspirations and hope; the goal was to depict the saint as a relatable human, bringing the audience a step closer to salvation and hope as the movie came to a close.