Into Death and Beyond It: The Triumph of the Heart
FILM REVIEW
By Fr. John Roderick, F.S.C.B.
September, 2025
Parishioners from Nativity of Our Lord took the AMC Promenade theater by storm on the memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe (August 14) for an early viewing of Triumph of the Heart (2025). The film is based on the well-known story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest, who offered himself to take the place of another prisoner condemned to death in Auschwitz. The movie recounts the dramatic experience of the fourteen days the ten men lived together in the starvation cell until they died or were executed by lethal injection.
Amidst this terrible, dark experience that can only be characterized as hell-like, St. Maximilian lived his faith in Christ and brought hope to the condemned prisoners. The movie wonderfully witnesses to the triumph of God’s love over death and hell. The title of the film comes from the reworking of a famous work of Nazi propaganda called “The Triumph of the Will.” The title, “Triumph of the Heart,” announces that the real and definitive victory in life comes only through the human heart’s encounter with the love and mercy of God.
The words “into death and beyond it” are placed on the lips of almost all the condemned prisoners in the starvation bunker. They are stated by the first prisoner who dies, and it gradually becomes a type of mantra that is repeated throughout the film. They return a final time on the secret love letter that is delivered after the war to one of the prisoners’ beloved spouses. These words offer an important Christological key that helps the viewer understand the film. “Into death and beyond it” points to the mystery of the Holy Triduum. On Good Friday, Jesus lovingly embraced the mystery of death; on Holy Saturday, He descended into the realm of the dead (hell); and on Easter Sunday, He resurrected victoriously. The film itself follows a paschal rhythm from the beginning to the end.
Throughout the film, Kolbe enters the great suffering of the men and accompanies them through friendship, love, humor, song, and prayer. He becomes a vehicle through which the condemned prisoners encounter the mercy and closeness of God. In a certain manner, the film witnesses how Jesus Christ’s presence and love remain contemporary in the world through the lives and witness of the saints.
The film was written and directed by Anthony D’Ambrosio, who discovered the great Polish saint during a period of great trial and illness. While suffering from a severe chronic illness and insomnia, he began to deeply question his Catholic faith. He witnessed his life gradually fall apart. He encountered Kolbe while living through this difficult period of his life. He described his personal encounter with Kolbe as mirroring that which took place in Auschwitz. It was as if Kolbe, he wrote, “was entering into the cell of my sufferings.” The movie was born from personal prayer to Kolbe and the need to be accompanied in his suffering. I would like to share four aspects of the film that caught my attention.
Faith generates brotherhood. The film depicts the darkness and great desperation experienced by the prisoners at the beginning of their journey. Each man is isolated in his own pain and silence. They are seen sitting or standing alone with their backs up against the wall. After hearing a few anxious cries about their imminent death, Kolbe breaks this chorus of desperation, saying, “We’re dying, yes. But we don’t have to die like animals. We can die as men if we fix our eyes on God.” Kolbe was immediately met with great resistance from his companions. Slowly, the audience witnesses how Kolbe’s faith and friendship overcame his fellow prisoners’ resistance and began to generate a true Christian community, a brotherhood centered on Jesus Christ and their common Polish identity. In another moving dialogue, Kolbe speaks these powerful words, “Love is what nature responds to.” True brotherhood and community are born only through gestures of love and friendship. We become ourselves through love. As Saint John Paul II wrote in his first encyclical, “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it” (Redemptoris hominis, n. 10).
Lift up your hearts. The film remarkably illustrates the power of song and prayer to lift man’s heart and to transform the heart from despair to hope. At one point, Kolbe prayerfully sings the popular Marian hymn, Salve Regina, and a couple of the men join him. One confesses he learned this song from his grandmother and that he had an important role in his parish choir. The song quickly becomes a bridge to communion and human connection. Afterwards, one of the Jewish prisoners in the cell began singing the important prayer, “Shema Israel: Hear, O Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD alone” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The prayer was heard by a fellow Jewish prisoner outside the cell who began to cry, remembering her faith in God.
Later in the film, Kolbe encourages them to sing a renowned Polish song called “Rota” (The Oath). It’s an early 20th-century poem that was considered a national anthem for Polish independence in the face of German oppression. While singing this anthem, Kolbe reminded his friends of their identity as sons of God and of Poland. Their Catholic and Polish identities could not be destroyed by the German occupation. A genuine hope was awakened in them. They stood together in the cell and sang their hearts out. Through the barred window of the cell, many other Polish prisoners in the camp heard them singing and began to sing with them. Everyone stopped working and started singing the anthem together. It was a powerful moment when the audience witnessed the ability of song to lift one’s heart and rekindle hope.
Suffering with. The film beautifully depicts the Christian invitation to “suffer with” others, the mystery of Christian charity. From beginning to end, Kolbe desires to accompany the suffering of the condemned prisoners who are with him in the bunker. As a child, Kolbe received a vision of Mother Mary appearing to him, presenting him with two crowns: a white crown of heroic virtue and a red crown of martyrdom. The film is the story of the realization of this vision as he becomes a martyr. In an intense dialogue, Kolbe confesses his faith to one of his fellow prisoners. “I have a Savior who loves to be with me in my suffering,” said Kolbe. Kolbe experienced in a very intimate way the imitation of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
“Finish the race.” In another significant dialogue with a fellow prisoner who had just tried to take his own life, St. Maximilian consoles and invites him to “finish the race.” He said to him, “Everyone who has gone before us is watching from the stands to see us finish the race.” Here, the Polish saint makes a direct reference to the well-known verse from St. Paul, “Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish the race and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24, see also 2 Timothy 4:7). For Christians, we are not competing against one another but against the struggles, physical and spiritual, that stand in the way of reaching the ultimate prize: eternal life. When Kolbe was about to die by lethal injection, he whispered, “We have won the race, we are free.” During the film, it seemed like Kolbe was not only encouraging his fellow prisoners but also the entire audience to keep the faith and finish the race. He was inviting me personally, as well as the entire Nativity parish community, to live our daily struggles and suffering with faith, with our eyes and hearts set on Christ.
The Triumph of the Heart is an important film that offers the viewer the possibility of accompanying St. Maximilian Kolbe in the intense and prayerful days before his martyrdom. The film beautifully witnesses to God’s desire to embrace us in our suffering and transform the mystery of the worst of all human sufferings through friendship, love, song, and prayer. The power of Jesus Christ’s victory on the Cross is made visible to us through the life of this great Polish Saint. I pray that all those who see the film may encounter the love of God for our wounded and suffering humanity and have kindled in them the hope in our God who desires to come and suffer with us. This is the true triumph of the heart.
More about the movie: www.triumphoftheheart.com.
