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The Believer [DVD] [2001]
 
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The Believer [DVD] [2001]

DVD ~ Ryan Gosling
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Product details

  • Actors: Ryan Gosling, Summer Phoenix, Peter Meadows, Garret Dillahunt, Kris Eivers
  • Directors: Henry Bean
  • Writers: Henry Bean, Mark Jacobson
  • Producers: Adam Haight, Christopher Roberts, Daniel Diamond, Eric Sandys, Jay Firestone
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English, Hebrew
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Pathe Distribution
  • DVD Release Date: 3 Jun 2002
  • Run Time: 98 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000065UH7
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 10,384 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

With The Believer, his first film as director, screenwriter Henry Bean wastes no time in going for the jugular. In the opening scene a timid Yeshiva student is chased off a New York subway train, racially abused and savagely beaten up by a ranting skinhead, and from then on in the level of hatred and violence rarely abates. But the passion that fuels the film is as much psychological as physical. The skinhead Danny Balint is the film’s protagonist, and his anti-Semitic venom has an unusual cause: he’s Jewish himself.

Bean, whose previous work as a scriptwriter (Mulholland Falls and the like) has been accomplished but not exceptional, tackles this fraught subject with a strong sense of personal commitment. He doesn’t go for easy targets, either. Like Edward Norton's character in American History X, Danny is no mindless thug: he’s intelligent and frighteningly articulate, and he can argue his case with mouth and brains no less than with fists and boots. The film traces his attitude back to his schooldays, when he revolted against the unquestioning submission to Orthodox doctrine that his teachers tried to instil. Faced with a group of Holocaust survivors he denounces them for their passivity in the face of oppression. "Kill your enemies!" he tells them scornfully.

There’s a lot of talk in this film, and several of the characters are little more than mouthpieces for their respective views. (If Bernard Shaw had ever written a play about anti-Semitism, it might have come out rather like this.) But the play of ideas is passionate and deeply felt, and as the tormented Danny, constantly drawn back to the faith he despises, Ryan Gosling gives a riveting performance. This is an intense, anguished film that dares to pose deeply disquieting questions. --Philip Kemp

On the DVD: Although the disc only has one special feature, "Anatomy of a Scene", courtesy of the Sundance Channel, it is an interesting and informative dissection of the filming processes, the casting and the controversial and moving script. The visuals are on top form with 16:9 widescreen, but the sound is a disappointment--only mustering a 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo. --Nikki Disney



DVD Description

Feature Length: 98 mins Approx
Disc Format: 1.85:1

Wide screen version: 16:9
DVD 5: Single layer, single sided disc
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English
Colour

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A cut above the rest, 4 Jun 2006
By Spider Monkey (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
Although graphic to watch in places this film is highly deserving of any praise it receives. It deals with a controversial subject remarkably well and with real power. It also comes at it from a new angle, that of the Jewish Nazi, which gives it that extra edginess. I have rarely seen a film that left me thinking of it's issues so long and recommending it to so many people.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling story and truly interesting take on Judaism, 14 Nov 2007
By Prayers for rain (Midi Pyrénées) - See all my reviews
I had seen the Believer at the cinema, and have recently seen it again in DVD. This movie had left a strong impression on me, and the feeling has been confirmed after watching it again.
It is the story (inspired by the true story of a certain Daniel Burros) of a young Neo-Nazi Jew taken in the net of contradictions between his religion/roots and his antisemitic ideology, between the quest for meaning and self-hatred. One might have feared clichés and simplistic psychology, but none of these in that movie. The actor (whose performance some newspapers rightly compared to De Niro's in Taxi Driver) perfectly incarnates this young man undergoing a metaphysicial crisis -- a rebel rejecting his roots and religion, but prisioner, despite himself, of his own identity, which will constantly catch him up.
Metaphysical questioning and very interesting reflexions on judaism makes this movie powerful, thought-provoking and excellent (careful though : several violent scenes).
The non-manicheistic, quite existentialist end brings more questions than answers and illustrates the inner questioning and complex / yet coherent psychology of Daniel, the protagonist.

In short, an intense and powerful movie, that I strongly recommend. Let me quote the words of Mr Maurice Samuel (a Jewish author) which echo Daniel's own questioning and self-destructive behaviour :

". . . we Jews,
the destroyers, will remain the destroyer forever. . . nothing that the
Gentiles will do will meet our needs and demands".

When it was released, the Believer didn't find a film distributor in USA, and remained confidential there -- given the anti-Hollywood treatment of the subject, this is no surprise. Yet the film was released in various European countries and Israel as well. It won the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance Festival in 2001.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Raising a fist to God, 20 Oct 2003
By Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
Towards the end of THE BELIEVER, I mused on the similarity of the film to the 1975 screen production of THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH starring Maximilian Schell. In the latter, Schell stars as a reclusive, wealthy, Jewish, Manhattan industrialist, Arthur Goldman, who (apparently) has used his connections and financial resources to create the fiction that he's a former Nazi prison commandant, a fabrication (apparently) leaked to the Israelis. Without knowing this beforehand, It comes as a surprise to the viewers and Goldman's associates, but not to Arthur himself, when he's kidnapped (as was Adolf Eichmann) and removed to Israel to stand trial as a war criminal - on display in a glass booth wearing full Nazi regalia. Schell is stunningly powerful as the concentration camp survivor who goes to extremes to exorcise his personal guilt at having outlived the Holocaust, and what he sees as the collective guilt of his people for not fighting back.

In THE BELIEVER, Ryan Gosling is Danny, an incredibly intelligent, literate and articulate 22-year old who spends his days as a neo-Nazi skinhead preaching hatred and expressing the desire to kill Jews. His activities run the full gamut from planting bombs with a group of like-minded, mindless thugs, to fund raising in a suit and tie for an upscale Fascist organization. The thing is, you see, Danny is himself a Jew with deep emotional ties to his heritage.

It's perhaps an over-simplification to say that Danny hates Jews. Rather, he hates the message that Orthodox Jews preach, i.e. that Jews are but the pawns of God and must be submissive to His will - even to the point of abject pacifism in the face of the most extreme persecution. Danny is not, nor has ever been, submissive to his religion and its appointed teachers. He doesn't loathe his Jewish self so much as the thought that his religion automatically makes him a submissive creature. Basically, he wants the Chosen People to fight back. This is evident early on as he savagely beats a meek, yarmulke-wearing teenage boy while screaming, "Hit me! Hit me!" Moreover, he figuratively shakes his fist at God, daring Him to strike him dead for his rebellion.

At one point, Danny asserts that the Jews are naturally a wandering people thriving on the prejudice they encounter, and that the Israeli's have risen above their Jewishness because they now have a land to call home. Since the Israeli's are aggressively militant in their own defense, it seems to me that Danny might just as well be a staunch Zionist. Why he isn't is a mystery. But, no matter, because Gosling, like Schell, is stunning as a guilt-ridden and psychologically tortured individual seeking inner peace. While the film's conclusion is the ambiguous sort that invites extended coffee house discussion, it's evident that Danny goes to an extreme to find it. And the very last dialog that is heard, "There's nothing up there", leaves an aftertaste of the nihilism that Danny suspects is true.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Believe
Ryan Gosling is terrific in this. His performance is absolutely spellbinding. We see him as Daniel, rising through the ranks of a a fictional American Neo-Fascist party. Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2007 by pablo

5.0 out of 5 stars Ryan Gosling deserves an Oscar
This film is raw, gritty and powerful, but more than that it is so rough around the edges that you can't tell at times whether it's a documentary or a film. Read more
Published on 29 Mar 2006 by Mr

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievably unescapable
To be or not to be a Jew. The film seems to tell us how a Jew tried to become a nazi in today’s America. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2006 by Jacques COULARDEAU

5.0 out of 5 stars A very thought-provoking and well-developed film
Having visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2003, I was interested to see how the neo-facist attitudes and views of the main character would be portrayed in "The Believer". Read more
Published on 12 Jan 2005 by Ms. N. L. Wood

1.0 out of 5 stars A film to avoid
This is a disgusting and depressing film. About an insane, young jewish man in USA that's a neo-nazi at the same time. Understand it, if you can. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2004 by Glux Riffa

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 stars...not enough
...ryan gosling has been one of my favourite actors for some time now, and i thought i'd check this film out as i heard form some fellow fans in thew states that he's brilliant in... Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2002 by E. Towner

4.0 out of 5 stars Know thy enemy... A disturbing account of a jewish neo nazi.
Danny Balint is a skin-head, Danny Balint hates Jews, Danny Balint, is also clear-headed and extremely intellegent, the antithesis of tradional views on the mindlessly violent... Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2002

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