Defiance (2008) – on rental. Director Edward Zwick doesn’t make a lot of films, but I’ve always liked his output. There was the Oscar-winning Glory in 1989, The Last Samurai (Tom Cruise not withstanding LOL), and the semi-recent Blood Diamonds.
So, war films with a historical basis is familiar territory for him. I think his most recent film, Defiance, had a short and limited run in the theatres here, even though I was aware of its theme and the leading cast.
The film is based on the true story of the four Bielski brothers, Communist Jewish partisans who protected a large group of Jews fleeing from the Nazi extermination in 1941. They spent the war years hiding in the woods of Poland, eluding and fighting off the German army in a constant running battle as they moved from camp to camp.
The film begins with black and white footage that seems a mix of real historical and filmed to explain the context – Jews are being rounded up and sent to concentration camps where many will be systematically exterminated. We’re introduced to the three brothers quickly, with a few lucky Jewish civilians who managed to escape the murderous purge. Their numbers grow quickly as more refugees of the Nazi death squads stream in, and the three brothers suddenly find themselves protectors and providers for hundreds of persons.
Interestingly, the film alternates between several languages besides English: German and Russian are spoken by the main characters between themselves and others in the film, which led me to wonder why English was even used. Was English widely spoken in Poland in 1941?
Daniel Craig, taking a break from his role as Bond, and Liev Schreiber of the recent Wolverine movie plays the two most important brothers in the story: Tuvia (left) and Zus (right in the picture below). Their motivations and character dispositions are polar opposites. Both brothers have suffered personal losses, with their wives and children killed. But Tuvia believes that they should not become murderers themselves for vengeance. Zus has no such inhibitions.
Nicely though the story doesn’t quite go the conventional route by pitting one against the other. Rather, they just go about resisting the German forces in different ways and avoiding contact with each other until incidents in the latter part of the film bring them together again.
The two brother’s interpersonal dynamics were a highpoint for me: it’s good cop bad cop. The two elder brothers love each other, but just disagree on how best they should resist the Germans. Audiences will likely find both persons’ viewpoints equally persuasive. Me, I was more swayed by Zus than Tuvia. Kill those SOBs LOL.
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There was another similar film in 2001 called Uprising that had a similar theme of Jewish resistance. The setting was different though: that film showed the Jew resistance in the urban city of Warsaw. Most of Defiance takes place in forests both in spring and the cold winter.
Defiance isn’t perfect. It’s a little slow in parts. But it’s nice to see Craig shrug off his Vodka Martinis, tuxedos and his stiff upper lip, and look tired, unshaven, dirty while fighting a desperate battle against the Germans.
I’m not certain too on how much of the film’s incidents actually happened – including how the Bielski brothers herded the hundreds of Jews they were protecting through a seemingly impenetrable marsh with the German forces hot on their tail. Like how Moses fled from the Pharoah by parting the Red Sea. But it seemed rather contrived.
Still, it’s an interesting story, and the supporting cast largely comprise unknowns so that there aren’t any spots where you’d be chuckling at all too familiar faces donning 1940s clothing and weapons and trying to sound Polish.
The DVD supplements deserves a mention: there’s a video segment where Tuvia Bielski (right)’s descendants are interviewed. His son says in the segment that when he was young, there were many people coming and going out of the house hugging his dad. He always thought these visitors were family, and never realized that his dad was a hero that saved thousands of lives. Three of the four brothers survived the war, one of whom is still alive today.
I enjoyed Defiance (though Matt didn’t LOL). Certainly better than Valkyrie.:)
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