The film begins where most biopics would end. Sirens blare, emaciated men in striped prison uniforms rush to stand at attention while armed Nazi guards smirk at them. A German officer makes the announcement: a prisoner has done the unthinkable: escaped Auschwitz. In retaliation, ten men will be chosen at random to be placed in a cell without food or water until they die or until the lost prisoner is found. There is pleading, crying. All of them have loved ones, hopes, dreams, futures. And then something even more unthinkable happens– even more unthinkable than a prisoner escaping Auschwitz. A different prisoner steps out of line– risking being shot on the spot– and offers to take the place of another man. In response to the guards’ question of ‘why?’ he says simply. “I am a Catholic priest.” 

Until the moment that the frustrated guards come into the cell to finish his executions, this is the last moment history knows of St. Maximillian Kolbe, and it is where most biographies and hagiographies end. And yet this is the very first scene of our film. 

To be sure, there are flashbacks. Some are St. Kolbe’s life, but just as many are of the lives of the men he is dying with, as they come to terms with their grief and loss of loved ones. But much of the drama lies within the cramped cell. At first the men hope that the escaped prisoner will be found, but quickly they realize that they are fighting for more than just their lives– they are fighting for their humanity. The Nazi guards relish telling them stories of other such prisoners locked in the cell before them, who resorted to cannibalism and then died like animals. 

One character in the film becomes as important of a character as St. Kolbe himself. A young man, he is wracked with anger at himself and at God. A Polish man, he had been living safely in England when Poland was attacked, and he left a pleading fiance to fight for his country. Flashbacks show him reading her stories of knights going off to fight for their lady’s honor. He was full of youthful faith that his bravery would end in a hero’s return back to her. Now he finds himself locked up to die, unable to say goodbye or tell her what became of him. His story arc of wrestling with this very relatable grief and doubt in God’s goodness amidst such evil was particularly moving.

I knew going into the film that the writer/director, Anthony D’Ambrosio could write a good script. Whether he could direct or attract quality actors was uncertain. Thankfully the answer is yes. The film masterfully cuts between flashbacks, present scenes and surreal scenes of semi-madness as the prisoners slowly descend into starvation without once leaving the viewer overly confused. Although viewers familiar with Kolbe’s story will more readily understand the symbolism in the scenes meant to depict his dying hallucinations, those unfamiliar will still be able to follow the emotional journey of the characters. 

What’s most remarkable is that as a WWII holocaust film this is quite easy to watch. I was prepared to grit my teeth and clench my stomach but Kolbe’s message of hope in the narrative runs so strong that the time slipped by unnoticed. And yet the scenes never descend into that level of cloying cheesiness that plague so many Christian films. Even when the Jewish professor in Kolbe’s cell asks to join his militia– a moment other films might use to hammer home the win of a conversion– Kolbe only smiles and nods. Shortly afterwards the old man dies, his head resting on the lap of another prisoner. The guards come to drag his body away and the prisoners comfort each other. It is the little moments of kindness between them, rather than giving into their anger or frustration, that give this story its emotional power. 

It is these small charities that ironically make them dangerous to their Nazi captors. The commander in charge of Auschwitz at first hopes to make a spectacle of the priest’s ignoble death, but as he and the other men band together, the Nazi officer finds himself in an awkward position, with superiors calling to  threaten demotion if his little endeavor ends up becoming an embarrassment. No longer content to merely leave them to starve, he devises more and more cunning ways to attack their spirit and finds himself in a sort of cat and mouse game with the saint. 

As a film about a saint, its primary audience is certainly Catholic viewers. Protestant viewers will also enjoy the film, but they might be confused and slightly unsettled at the heavy Marian imagery of the movie. The figure of Christ appears only once, and so briefly that the viewer, like the hallucinating prisoners, might wonder if he was really there at all. But Mary appears almost as often as the flesh and blood characters. And when she appears, no lighting or fog tricks are applied. She moves with the grace and fleshy weight of a mature woman who has carried and born a child and much suffering. In this cell with Kolbe, we are brought to a place where the supernatural is just as present as the temporal, and the viewer is not allowed to flinch away from the body– a reaction the German officers are consistently trying to induce. If I feel beholden to warn you of anything about this film it is that the experience may not be a comfortable one to share with a Protestant viewer, but it might also be worth the fruit of the conversation afterwards if one can convince a Protestant friend to watch it. 

Yet the very reasons that might turn off a Protestant viewer are also the reasons that a secular viewer might enjoy the film. For a secular viewer, the story will be about courage, with faith being the undeniable bulwark for that virtue. Secular viewers will appreciate the respect Triumph of the Heart gives the human body itself, and the respect given to other prisoners, even the non-religious and non-Christian ones. This isn’t a God’s Not Dead film that will leave them gagging and feeling dismissed. In fact, in one of the ending scenes that depict flashes of heaven, the Jewish Professor appears, grinning under his kippah, in heaven but still a child of Israel. It is a subtle nod of respect. 

The ending is no surprise: we are told at the start of the film that everyone will die. And yet, by the end, viewers will leave the theater not fatigued or breathless from a harrowing sight but rendered silent in warm reflection of the power of good over evil.