The Boxer and Death

Black and white, 35 mm
Czechoslovakia, 1962, 102 min
Section: Tribute to Peter Solan

Synopsis

The film opens to the sound of a series of punches, and the figure of a boxer gradually emerges from the darkness. After the training session, the shot of a concentration camp commandant’s uniform suddenly reveals the provisional boxing ring as part of a huge death factory. From the very first scene the character of these two locations is moulded into the story of two unequal opponents. At its beginning, both have a stroke of "luck”: the camp commandant Kraft finds a sparring partner and the prisoner Komínek, who was captured trying to escape, is thus spared execution at the last minute. For the commandant, who has absolute power over his surroundings, this is the ideal opportunity to hone his skills with a view to resuming his boxing career after the war. The inmate, on the other hand, becomes a worthless "fly”, fattened up "like a pig” before its imminent slaughter. However, ex-boxer Komínek grows stronger by the day, and it isn’t long before he begins to recognise Kraft’s weaknesses. The defenceless man hides his strength in order to save his own life. He defeats the commandant in a revenge match following the murder of a friend who was tortured to death. The next plan to execute him is averted by Kraft’s wife Helga, who thinks it would damage her husband’s image as an impartial sportsman. In the end, Komínek makes the decision himself to return to the death camp when he realises that the price of his release is the execution of forty fellow prisoners. This film, based on the short story of the same name by Polish writer Józef Hen, was the first Slovak psychological drama to be set in a concentration camp. Through his concept of the dual ring and dual contest as representing the fight for survival, Solan deliberately avoids specific and spectacular situations in order to move with greater discretion and directorial austerity towards the decisive factor in every borderline situation: failure, or strength of human nature and solidarity.