MAY 12 • 2022 | 53

ARTS&LIFE
FILM REVIEW
B

ased on a true story, The Survivor follows the jour-
ney of professional boxer Harry Haft (Ben Foster).
Haft, born in Poland in 1925, was a Holocaust
survivor who lived through Auschwitz by winning boxing
matches against fellow inmates. The 2021 film, directed by
Barry Levinson, travels through Haft’s life, jumping conti-
nents and generations to tell the story of how one true love
can inspire a man to survive anything.
The Survivor opens on a tranquil beach in Tybee Island,
Georgia, in 1963, where Haft walks the sands alone. Yet
as the camera travels downward, we see a shadow of a
woman walking next to Haft, its movement cast on the
sand. Haft, while alone in the physical sense, walks side-
by-side with his long-lost love, Leah (Dar Zuzovsky), who
was hauled away by Nazis in war-torn Poland two decades
ago, never to be seen again.
Haft, however, never stops looking for Leah, driven
by a feeling deep inside that somewhere, somehow, she
survived the second World War. Engulfed in memories
of Leah, Haft, despite now having made a new life in
the United States where he boxed as a renowned light
heavyweight, continues to be haunted by the events of the
Holocaust.
One of the earliest scenes of the film shows Haft in
the ring in Coney Island, New York, in 1949, where
announcers call him the “Pride of Poland and Survivor
of Auschwitz.
” These words hold little meaning to Haft,
whose mind is filled with memories of Leah, which play
out in the film in black-and-white (while scenes after
the war play out in color). There is a sense that these lost
memories have also lost their color, a world that no longer

The Survivor explores the fine line of
choosing to survive or choosing to live.

HBO Original Film
Tells the story of

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

53 | MAY 12 • 2022

A Boxer at
Auschwitz

Ben Foster and Peter
Sarsgaard

PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSICA KOURKOUNIS/HBO

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