Editorial note: This essay contains spoilers for “Marty Supreme.”
A Variety article about “Marty Supreme”’s marketing campaign quoted one marketing person as saying “Ping-pong isn’t the most serious topic, so that gives them more room to play. If it were a movie about World War II? Not so much.”
Reading that quote, having seen Josh Safdie’s strange and stressful ping pong epic, I have to laugh, because among many other things, “Marty Supreme” is about World War II. Set in 1952, the film addresses many aspects of the war’s impact in an irreverent fashion, including the occupation of Japan and, most shockingly, the Holocaust.
Early on in the film, Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) jokes about Holocaust-surviving competitor Béla Kletzy (Géza Röhrig) “I’m gonna do to [him] what Auschwitz couldn’t.” Marty is friendly with Béla, to be clear – the two tour together for the Harlem Globetrotters’ half-time show – and after his off-color joke, he quickly adds, “I’m Jewish so I can say that,” describing himself as “the ultimate product of Hitler’s defeat.”
The post-modern flavor of its 1980s soundtrack and the characterization of Marty like a 2020s grindset bro goes some way towards minimizing questions about the realism of Marty even attempting such a way-too-soon joke in 1952. But this is only an appetizer to the film’s weirdest bit of Holocaust humor: a story told by Kletzky that, depending on your perspective, either directly foreshadows or sharply contrasts Marty’s ensuing journey.
Playing for Hungary, Béla was the world champion of table tennis from 1935 through 1939. One of the guards in Auschwitz was a fan and recognized him, giving him the opportunity to go outside the camp on bomb disposal missions. On one of these missions, Béla came across a beehive and did something embarrassing yet brave: he smeared the honey all over his body to sneak it into the camp for the other prisoners to eat.
There have been movies that sought humor surrounding the Holocaust before, to varying degrees of success (of noteworthy Holocaust comedies, I loved “Jojo Rabbit” and hated “Life is Beautiful,” though I know the Pope disagrees with me on the latter). “Marty Supreme”’s flashback stands out for the confusing mix of emotions it evokes: Béla’s story is about a moving act of kindness, yet involves imagery that can’t help but evoke nervous laughter.
I don’t believe this sequence to be a non-sequitur, even if its shocking nature could make it feel like one. Think about the context in which this story comes up: Marty and Béla are talking with American businessman and possible vampire Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), who demands the survivor’s “gratitude” about his son “liberating” Auschwitz – even though it was the Soviets who actually liberated Auschwitz and Milton’s son was fighting in the Pacific.
Milton’s role in Marty’s story serves as a direct parallel to the Nazi prison guard’s role in Béla’s. Both ping pong prodigies’ talents gain them opportunities from powerful evil men who’d otherwise destroy them, and while placed in very vulnerable positions, both players take actions to spite their wicked benefactors. Where Béla rebels by sneaking honey into the camp, Marty does so by defying Milton’s humiliations following a fixed match in Japan and choosing to follow it with a legit match to prove his greatness.
On one level, Béla’s story can be viewed as the movie in a microcosm, because taking absurd risks for the sake of small victories is what the rest of “Marty Supreme” is about. But there’s also a huge difference between the risks Béla took in his story and the ones Marty takes in his: Béla’s act is ultimately selfless, and Marty remains supremely selfish.
Yes, Marty can frame his final match as “honey” for the masses: he’s giving the audience an actual show, the American servicemembers in attendance a source of national pride, and his Japanese rival Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) a fair competition and freedom from Milton’s manipulations. Plus Milton is so hateable – in part due to O’Leary’s own hateability, a casting decision that’s stirred plenty of controversy – that you can’t help but root for Marty defying him at his own event.
But then you consider that by going to Japan at all, Marty abandoned his eight-months-pregnant baby mama Rachel (Odessa A’zion) while she was in the hospital. And then you remember all the scams he pulled and lies he told that led to his debts piling up in the first place. It’s understandable how Marty became so self-obsessed, growing up in a culture of “every man for himself,” but in that context, his final match plays less like Béla’s selfless gift of honey and more like the final step of his own self-mythologizing.
And it is definitively the final step – Marty ends the film having completely exhausted his future in table tennis. The final scene of Marty meeting his newborn son for the first time can be viewed in two very different ways: either he’s growing up and going to achieve a more selfless kind of “greatness,” or the real mess has only just begun.
“Marty Supreme” is in theaters now.
