Fighter

Released Sep 11, 2000

1h 31m

Documentary

List

96%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

77%

Audience Score

250+ Ratings

"Fighter" follows two friends, Jan Wiener, to whom the title refers, and Arnost Lustig, a writer - both in their seventies, and both exiles from Communist Czechoslovakia now living in America - as they retrace Wiener's escape from Prague after the Nazi takeover in the 1930s. Incorporating rare archival footage from Nazi and Communist propaganda films, the documentary focuses on the interaction between Wiener and Lustig as they retrace Wiener's steps.

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Stanley Kauffmann

The New Republic

No larger aspect of what is in this film can be new to us; but seeing it in this old-friends perspective gives all of it, familiar and new, a novel effect.

Apr 9, 2002

Full Review

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

What unfolds onscreen is remarkable: The passions and arguments of the past are resurrected in the present.

Rated: 3/4

Feb 26, 2002

Full Review

Chris Vognar

Dallas Morning News

Reminds us that different people react to madness -- in this case, the Holocaust -- in different ways.

Jan 24, 2002

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 3/5

Jun 27, 2005

Full Review

Derek Smith

Apollo Guide

'A humanistic piece about how the Holocaust, fascism, and the Second World War left permanent emotional scars on everyone who lived through it.'

Rated: 75/100

Oct 9, 2003

Full Review

Doris Toumarkine

Film Journal International

Enthralling.

Apr 9, 2002

Full Review

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Audience Member

Fascinating and complex documentary about the road trip undertaken by two Holocaust survivors back to the sites that defined their lives. Amir Bar-Lev's (My Kid Could Paint That, The Tillman Story) first film.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Chilling, detailed story of survival.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A great documentary that relies on the reality of its two stars for the drama as opposed to enhancing it with talking heads. Also, Arnold Lustig is one cool dude.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Great movie, I know the guy who made it, so I'm mildy bias tho.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I thought I was done with documentaries but a well done doc is probably the most deeply satisfying movie experience around. Fighter did not disappoint. Fighter is about a air fighter in WW2, Jan Weiner...he also just happens to be one of the men in the documentary - but the film is not about the real man, but the story of the man who was a fighter. The film follow two friends (one the principal the other a writer, Arnost Lustig) on a tour of his flight in Europe during the war. This movie is about the subjectivity of history...how any story can be seen from different angles and even the one who is in the center of the story has only one part of the story to tell. This movie is also about 2 men trying to hang onto a friendship despite their different ideas and experiences vis a vis a very controversial part of our history, that being the Nazis and the communists. You see, its one thing to have a different opinion on something benign, say the weather or the whether the Canucks should play the back up goalie more often - its very easy to be connected and friends...but take issues into which we both invest real importance, our children, our bank account, our sex life, then we shall see how well we tolerate difference in the other and even in ourselves. Herein lies the genius of film as art...you take a very basic/simple idea: we look at things from a different perspective...and then you allow that idea to be focussed upon through these very lovely and complex conversations and contexts and then suddenly you say to yourself "WOW, all of us, we look at things from such different perspectives...we are not trying to be the center of pain for another...we are simply different"...such is the genius of film. In a brilliant soliloquy, Lustig reminds us that it is only the rare person who becomes a hero who stands up and fights the bad in society...most of us are sad when someone dies but deep down are silently glad it is him and not me...and this is observed without contempt. Director Amir Bar-Lev has made a movie to be listened to more than watched. Its more like My Dinner with Andre in the sense that it is within the dialogue and the ideas that the power of the film is experienced.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/21/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I didn't like this film.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

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Amir Bar-Lev

Director

Arnost Lustig

Self

Jan Wiener

Self

Amir Bar-Lev

Producer

Jonathan Crosby

Producer

Alex Mamlet

Producer

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Synopsis

"Fighter" follows two friends, Jan Wiener, to whom the title refers, and Arnost Lustig, a writer - both in their seventies, and both exiles from Communist Czechoslovakia now living in America - as they retrace Wiener's escape from Prague after the Nazi takeover in the 1930s. Incorporating rare archival footage from Nazi and Communist propaganda films, the documentary focuses on the interaction between Wiener and Lustig as they retrace Wiener's steps.

Director: Amir Bar-Lev
Producer: Amir Bar-Lev, Jonathan Crosby, Alex Mamlet
Distributor: First Run
Production Co: Next Wave Films
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 11, 2000, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 25, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA): $94.5K
Runtime: 1h 31m