Sometimes a movie comes along that by its very nature, structure or subject matter is a puzzle. Maybe it’s obscure symbolism that challenges the viewer to make sense of what they’ve seen, a plot so full of twists and turns that it takes a magician to make sense of them all, or a set of characters so complicated that they are difficult to get a grasp on. Sometimes a movie challenges the viewer to set aside widely accepted societal definitions and accept something completely outside their experience. This is the case with the 2001 release The Believer from writer/director Henry Bean. It’s hard to get a fix on the target audience for this film. For it is a film about disaffected youth, religion and bigotry, but not in any traditional sense of those words.

The Believer stars Ryan Gosling as Danny Balint. As the film opens, we see Danny lifting weights, donning his swastika t-shirt, and, sporting his stereotypical skinhead haircut, swagger his way onto a subway train. We see his target immediately, a young man reading a textbook and wearing a yarmulke. Danny makes his way over to the boy, edging into his personal space with the clear intention of intimidating through sheer physical presence. He stands over the boy, steps on his feet, crowds him. After the car stops, he follows his target off the train, where he confronts and beats him, all the while asking the boy to hit back. The boy does not do this.

Danny leaves, the expression of rage and disgust on his face clear and incredibly disturbing. He and his like-minded pals make their way to a meeting of a group of nascent fascists who see fascism as the way to cure the ills that ail society. They, however, talk of leaving the racial element of mid-twentieth century fascism by the wayside, in favor of focusing on the economic benefits of their way of thinking. Danny pipes up with a blistering screed against Jews. He hates them. He knows everyone else in the room hates them, but won’t say it. He sees the only way of getting this movement off the ground to be by making some big statement. His statement of choice is to start killing high profile Jews. The rest of the group initially expresses discomfort with the idea, until it becomes clear that, in actuality, they agree. The leaders of this “movement”, Curtis (Billy Zane) and Lena (Theresa Russell) share a glance and present Danny with an opportunity to enter their inner circle. Danny becomes more and more involved with the group, expounding more or less constantly on his hatred of Jews, citing example after example of how the religion is inherently flawed.

What we see of the rest of Danny’s life makes him much more confounding than some random skinhead. Danny is Jewish. We see him interacting with his family, whom he clearly loves, and flashbacks of his early, quite intense, religious training. He knows the intricate details of Judaism because he lived them. As the flashbacks become more complete, we see the young Danny questioning his teachings, asking logical questions which are rebuffed as improper, until he eventually flees. The one particular childhood episode that we keep going back to is the teaching of the story of Isaac*. Danny’s interpretation differs vastly from that of his teacher, and for this he is punished. The movie plays out as we see Danny’s past come more and more alive as he becomes involved in the actual plotting of what he has long espoused.

What Bean has given us here is a character that becomes more and more conflicted as his story progresses. With each potential act of violence, Danny’s flashbacks become more explanatory as to the source of his hatred, while at the same time he has increasing difficulty living this doctrine which he has adopted. He connects with the daughter of Lena (Summer Phoenix), only to become involved in a tremendously convoluted relationship that somehow disparages and celebrates his ancestry at the same time. He is also, at one point, forced by the court to complete some sensitivity training consisting of hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors. Not only does he confront them as to why they took no action to protect themselves and their families, he is also firmly put in his place by one of the survivors. This kind of emotional response to his pure logic enrages him.

When all is said and done, this isn’t just a movie about skinheads and neo-Nazis. There is much more here than a man filled with hate and violence lashing out at a convenient victim. Danny is a man with a keen and questioning mind. He is unwilling to unquestioningly following any doctrine placed before him. In his youth, that doctrine happened to be a very rigid form of Judaism. One that tolerated no dissent, disagreement, or even much discussion. For Danny, this is unacceptable. After a lifetime of being told that his questions are intolerable, his interpretations blasphemous, he loses respect for the very institution which formed such a large part of his early life. Without any anchor, his own anger and the rashness of youth lead him down an incredibly destructive path. While the movie unquestionably contains anti-Semitic rhetoric and sentiment, this story could have been told with any unbending life philosophy at its core. Christianity, Atheism, politics, environmentalism, nationalism. Any of these made sufficiently rigid, set against a boy unwilling to accept absolutes without question, could have resulted in a similar outcome. Why the filmmakers chose Judaism as their central area of conflict, I don’t know. But hazarding a guess, it may be that the gut level revulsion many people feel at the mention of neo-Nazi’s, combined with the assumption that most people have at least some minimal knowledge of the history of the Jewish people, played a part in this decision. By wrapping the story around such a globally scarring part of both the past and the present definitely gives the struggle of the character of Danny deeper emotional resonance.

While all the actors turn in serviceable performances, this is clearly a movie that lives or dies on the performance of Ryan Gosling as Danny. Gosling manages to take this thoroughly despicable young man, and, over the course of two short hours, make him into a complex, tortured soul. Even when spewing the most foul of his anti-Jewish rhetoric (and foul it is, make no mistake), there is a desperation and pain in his eyes that makes you want to resolve his conflict so he can have some peace. Gosling gives Danny charisma to spare, letting his intelligence shine in his face, even when his words are sickening. He also manages, on occasion, to give Danny a self-loathing, violent rage that is as frightening as it is pitiable. An incredible performance, Gosling gives us the nearly impossible, a hate-mongering bigot who we yearn to save from himself and his inner turmoil.

Throughout the film, there is a marvelous, although generally soft and unobtrusive, score (Joel Diamond) of Jewish music flowing just beneath the dialogue and action. The ethnic music further adds to the mood of conflict between what is said and what is felt. It is a marvelous accompaniment to the film, greatly enhancing the tone, as well as helping the movie focus on the internal dissonance of Danny, rather on the surface aspects of neo-fascism.

Bean and Gosling offer up a brave film in The Believer. The movie runs a very real risk of alienating the audience with its offensive initial scenes. These first scenes are nothing we haven’t seen before (American History X comes to mind), but the direction this film takes is completely different from what you expect after those initial passages. This is a movie filled with anger and resentment, but also with the pain of recognition. Danny sees his conflict, but is unable to resolve it. He doesn’t know how to go forward and he can’t get far enough past his rage to go back. The Believer is a very well done film about a young man filled with fear, rage and anger, at his past and at himself. This is a film that takes a big chance, and the viewer is the winner in the end.












*Far from being a Biblical scholar of any sort, this is a sketch of the story of Isaac as I know it: Abraham was instructed by God to kill his son as proof of his belief and devotion. Although devastated at the prospect of murdering his child, Abraham followed God’s instruction, and only as he raised his knife to kill his son, did God provide him with an animal to slaughter instead. Thus he proved his absolute willingness to follow the word of god and was allowed to spare his child.





**The DVD contains several extras worth note. There is an interview with Bean, an “Anatomy of a Scene” selection, the trailer as well as other previews, and a web link of some sort. As is usual for me, I chose not to watch the extras. When a movie is as open to interpretation as The Believer, I prefer to draw my conclusions on my own. Interviews are often interesting, but also tend to detract from my own sense of a movie.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age