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DEFIANCE Edward Zwick Starring Daniel Craig Liev Schreiber Jamie Bell Defiance is the second of three WWII/Nazi films released this January; the other two being Valkyrie and The Reader. Of the three, this is the weakest but is in no way a weak release. The story tells of four Jewish brothers in what is now Western-Belarus as they evade Nazi capture and haphazardly start collecting fellow refugees. Essentially, the film can be best described as a forest survival drama interspersed with raids on Nazi patrols. Now, I have no intention of getting into the "was it / wasn't it true argument" because that's an exercise in futility. All you need to know is that it's based on a true story and as such everything but the message needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm a fan of Edward Zwick's productions, but unlike Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai and Glory, this film partly resembles The Siege; a film with an important message and impressive acting but the lavish runtime and slow-developing drama hinders the overall effect. But this is typical of Zwick and I usually praise him for it - too many movies pander to the short attention spans of the masses but rather than a slowly developing release Defiance feels more like a struggling endurance. This isn't the only minor point; the plot flow is too contained within the woods - I clearly understood the purpose and intention of this but if you remove the real threat of Nazi occupation, they just feel like this ominous bad guy that needs to be removed. I know, I know, that comment is completely out of character for me and I am in no way suggesting that audiences require a singularly obsessed Nazi officer relentlessly tracking down our heroes but it certainly needed something additional to expose the grander scale. The film also played up to a lot of Jewish stereotypes, we have the obligatory religious festival, joking about the amount of 'useless' accountants and intellectuals with no real handy experience, the old man arguing with the young over issues of politics, community and society, the concept that Jews don't take part in manual labour, blah blah blah. I used to live in North London, which is about as Jewish an area as it comes in the UK and I personally have no problem with Jewish people. Having said that, I don't know of many British Jews who play to these very American stereotypes - maybe it's just me. Finally, there's also the fact that like Australia, Defiance heavily subscribes to as many wartime clichés as they possibly can. Also, despite the female members of the camp taking part in the building and defence of the camp, I felt they played too much of a background role to the males. Still, it's not at all bad. The story, action and drama combined produce a thoroughly rewarding film that explores an element of necessity and wilderness survival during harsh times. It also displays a very accurate portrayal of sibling loyalties and rivalries that I immensely enjoyed - to be honest, the interaction between the brothers was possibly the best element of the whole feature. There was also the language issue which was cleverly dealt with. At first I was a little confused why in certain scenes the lead characters would talk to fellow Russians in Russian (with subtitles) and yet the majority of the film is in English. The reason for this is because they spoke Yiddish to each other. Furthermore the diversity in language (and the exceptional employment of it by the lead actors) between Russian, German & Yiddish creates a very poignant exclusion barrier that singles out and (almost) ostracises them from their fellow countrymen. On top of all that, there are the costumes, the cinematography, editing and the score, all of which are sterling achievements. As a casual feature, Defiance is a very hard film to get into but if you're in the right frame of mind and in the mood for an original twist on the actions of the holocaust than this is an extremely rewarding, emotional piece. Release Date: 9th January 2009 The Scene To Look Out For: For those that don't know, the Jewish people profess to be God's chosen people (as most religious bodies do). During one moment of desperation, praying together, they turn to the skies and request that God choose another people, that their final wish is not so much to end the persecution but to stave it onto another people. It may sound like a minor point - a war movie in which people lose faith, big deal - but I've never heard it worded like that before. I suppose to a Catholic it would not be too dissimilar to the passing of the chalice but you very rarely hear those lines in a holocaust-orientated film. I just thought it was somewhat of a bold move. Notable Characters: Liev Schreiber plays the hot-headed Zus Bielski with a passion that dwarfs the performances of those around him; similarly, Craig and Bell offer praiseworthy exhibitions but more often than not, Schreiber steals the show. Highlighted Quote: "There's a man in the East with a little moustache and one in the West with a big moustache, that's my understanding of politics" In A Few Words: "Not nearly as grand as other holocaust releases but as a wartime survival film, Defiance delivers" Total Score: 
7/10Matthew Stogdon |
