Guys, the disturbing ‘honey scene’ in Marty Supreme is actually based on a true story

A24’s Marty Supreme has officially landed, and while Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is loosely based on the real-life 1940s ping-pong legend Marty Reisman, there are other-real life scenes and characters too.

A24

In the film, Marty recounts how a fellow prisoner, a talented ping-pong player named Béla, was tasked with disarming bombs during his time in Auschwitz. During one mission in the woods, Béla found beehives and covered his body in honey. He returned to the barracks, allowing his fellow prisoners to lick the honey from his skin for nourishment. 

As it turns out, the truth is actually just as wild and devastating as the film.

It’s based on a real person called Alex Ehrlich

The character of Béla is inspired by a man named Alojzy “Alex” Ehrlich.

In Reisman’s autobiography (which Josh Safdie basically used as his Bible for this film), he writes about Ehrlich, a Polish Jewish champion who was sent to Auschwitz after being caught with a radio transmitter.

According to Reisman’s book, Ehrlich was given “special” treatment in the camps, which, in the context of the Holocaust, is a very loose term. Because the Nazis recognized him as a world-class athlete, he was spared from the gas chambers and given the terrifying job of diffusing bombs.

Reisman wrote: “Once Ehrlich was defusing a bomb when he found a honeycomb nearby. He smeared the honey all over his body and when he got back to camp, inmates licked the honey off his body for nourishment.”

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Josh Safdie told The Guardian that this specific anecdote hit him harder than most history books: “I learned more about the Holocaust in that little story than from some movies that are only about the Holocaust.”

A24

He was known as the ‘King of Chiselers’

Beyond the trauma of the war, the real Alex Ehrlich was a total menace on the table tennis court. He was known as a “chiseler”, essentially a player who refuses to attack and just keeps the ball in play until their opponent literally collapses from exhaustion.

At the 1936 World Championships, Alex and his opponent played a single point for two hours and 12 minutes. Two. Hours. The referee actually had to be replaced because he strained his neck watching the ball go back and forth.

The match ended when his opponent literally snapped, threw his paddle across the room, and ran out of the building screaming.

What does the scene actually mean?

Some critics see the honey scene as a “this is who we are” moment for the characters, while others see it as a metaphor for the entire movie, taking insane, life-threatening risks for the smallest, “sweetest” victories.

Whether you found it moving or just deeply uncomfortable, it’s one of those rare moments where the real-life history is somehow even more unbelievable than the A24 script.

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Featured image credit: A24