Antisemitism has come a long way since "gentleman's agreement"(1947).Kazan's attempt seems rather timid and tame today."The believer " sets the record straight.It's one of the most convincing works in the field.

It's all the more disturbing as the hero is a Jew joining the neonazis.And his behavior stems from his own education,his rebellion against the Torah:Abraham did really kill his own son,the Jew was made to comply with God's commandments;the hero finds similarities between the Nazis's and the Jews's beliefs ;both are the Chosen ones .What puzzles me is the fact that he wants to annihilate the Jews ,but he stills reads (and respects) the Bible(One shall not be naked in front of it for flesh is impure).

His arguments are sometimes disquieting (hints at Marx,Freud and Einstein) but finally it boils down to "we hate the Jews because we have to".

Danny is definitely a complex character,caught in a web of contradictions.One of the strongest scenes shows former victims of the Nazis during WW2;it's of course with them that we side ,and whatever Danny says about how he despises their passivity ,his protected life makes him incapable of true grit.

Spoilers Danny's final sacrifice is revealing:if God's wrath had killed him as pharaoh's tribe drowned in the tide (eg if he had accidentally been killed during one of his terrorisma acts or sentenced to death by a human court),the movie would have been a religious one (God's victory on evil).Danny chose the other way out.They will be speaking for a long time of the final sequence :it resembles an atheist version of that of "Jacob's ladder".The stairs and the teacher's sentence have something of Borges.End of spoilers.

To say that "the believer" is unique is to state the obvious.Even more intriguing,the most celebrated names (Theresa Russel and Billy Zane) are only supporting actors.At a time when graveyards are often profaned,when the far right wing's bad moon is on the rise almost everywhere ,this kind of film has become a necessity.Henry Bean is a very clever director and I hope to see more of his films in the future.

It's pretty chilling to watch "The Believer" and see how this young Jewish man (Ryan Gosling) lashes out against his people. I don't doubt that there may be people like this, but the movie does a good job depicting it. Almost as chilling as the whole idea are the scenes where he describes what he thinks of given ethnicities, and the scene in the synagogue.

So, maybe it's not a masterpiece, but I still recommend it. And the next time that you hear someone call Jews challenging Zionism "self-hating Jews", just remember what this movie portrays. And it's based on a true story.

Though Ryan Gosling got into the Oscar sweepstakes for Half Nelson this year, I think the part he played in The Believer might be his career role at least so far.

Based on a true story from the seventies, Gosling plays a member of the American Nazi Party who was in fact Jewish. It's the ultimate in self hate and not as uncommon as one would think.

In my life I've known at least one Jewish individual who converted from Judaism to the Russian Orthodox church, knowing full well the past involvement of that church with pogroms. I know a couple of openly gay men who are members of the New York State Conservative Party who wants to see a rollback of gay rights laws around the nation. The wellsprings of self hate run deep in a lot of people.

The Believer offers an explanation. Gosling is a bright man who just won't identify with Jews as a victim, as perpetual victims. It goes against his grain so much that he'd rather identify with the oppressors than with martyrs.

In the end Gosling can't live with himself. Him I understand, the people that I know are beyond me.