Defiance is a 2008 war film directed by Edward Zwick and starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and Mia Wasikowska.
There are countless amazing stories of survival during World War Two. The story of the Bielski Otriad in the forests of Belorussia is one I had never heard about until seeing this film.
To quote a character in one of his films, director Edward Zwick “has a flair for melodrama”. This could be a point against him, but the fact that he gets such talented actors and writers to play out the melodrama he directs makes it amazingly effective. I have no problem with having my heartstrings tugged if it’s done in such a fantastic way.
In the opening sequence of this film we see Nazi soldiers wantonly killing innocent people, and the scene ends with a man being shot dead at point blank range. As his body crumples to the ground the title of the film is superimposed over this horrendous image. It’s a purely stylistic move designed to give the audience goose bumps, and it works admirably.
Defiance tells the true story of four Jewish brothers in Belorussia during World War Two. After their homeland is taken over by the Wehrmacht and SS they flee into the massive forests near their home that they know like the back of their hands, and start the ‘Bielski Otriad’ – a small resistance movement that eventually grew to number in the hundreds.
The title of the film is very important, because to these men, being “defiant” means different things. Daniel Craig (as eldest brother Tuvia Bielski) represents defiance as pacifism – he is focused on survival by hiding and trying his best to be ignored and forgotten by the Nazis, only fighting when forced into it, or to survive. Whereas Liev Schreiber (as Zus Bielski) represents defiance as violence. He is angry and wants to fight back and disrupt the Nazi war machine that’s taken over his country.
It’s easy to agree with Schreiber’s character – the Nazis murdered his wife and child and he wants revenge. But Craig’s character’s point is illustrated really well in a scene where they attempt to be resistance fighters. They are on a high, having just stalked and killed some Nazi sympathisers. They have rifles, they are pissed off, and they feel invincible. So they decide to ambush a German soldier riding a motorcycle on a deserted road. They make short work of him, and then a car full of German officers shows up. They deal with them just as swiftly, but one of them is wounded doing so. Then, a whole truck full of soldiers shows up, and they get their asses kicked and are forced to flee, getting separated in the ensuing melee. This is probably my favourite scene in the entire film, because it illustrates beautifully the point Daniel Craig’s character makes soon afterwards – they cannot possibly fight the entire German army by themselves, because no matter how many soldiers they kill, more will just keep coming in greater numbers until they overwhelm any opposition the peasant brothers can muster.
But while Tuvia and Zus both see the madness in trying to resist by themselves, Zus cannot let go of his anger and decides to run off to join the Russian army so he can continue to fight, while Tuvia returns to the forest to face the logistical nightmare of trying to ensure the safety and survival of the (eventually hundreds of) Polish and Russian Jews who flee to the forest to join them.
Long gone are the days of John Wayne’s ‘clean’ World War Two movies. This film shows the ugliness of war and the lengths people will go to in order to survive it. The Bielski’s are forced to raid their own people’s farms for supplies, they beat and execute a German soldier they capture, and they brutally murder people in their town who collaborated with the Germans.
One thing I found startling is the hatred the Jews find on all fronts. Even the Russian partisans don’t care much for the Jews. You get a real sense of the persecution these people must have felt, surrounded on all sides by fanatical and ignorant hatred.
Despite the ugliness though, this is an Edward Zwick film, so there is a decidedly schmaltzy tone to some of the scenes. There’s scenes that are pure Hollywood rather than realistic (one of these scenes involves Daniel Craig riding in to deliver an inspirational speech on the back of a white horse…sigh…there’s symbolism and then there’s just shit), there’s the love affair between younger brother Asael (Jamie Bell) and his ‘forest wife’ Chaya (Mia Wasikowska) that is so drenched in sentimentality you know it’s going to end in tears.
Now this is going to sound contradictory given I’ve just complained about sentimentality, but I always find it disappointing when a character whose wife or girlfriend gets murdered early on in a film finds another love later in the film. Zus too gets a ‘forest wife’, and this to me erodes a bit of the power of his earlier scenes where the motivation for his violence is revenge. Yes, this is because I am a hopeless romantic but it’s also because Zus’ anger is great part of the film and I know that guys are far more pissed off when they are not getting laid.
Anyway, pacifism can only go so far when the forest hideaway is infiltrated time and again by those pesky Nazis and the ground begins to shrink beneath the Bielski Otriad. They are eventually forced out of the forest in a fantastic scene involving Stuka dive-bombers and lots of machine gun mayhem. This scene has a requisite “character deafened by bomb blast” moment ala Saving Private Ryan, but it’s forgivable because Stuka dive-bombers are awesome. The Nazis were detestable, deluded monsters, but they sure knew how to build cool planes.
My favourite part of the film is a scene where Daniel Craig’s leadership of the group is challenged. I was expecting another inspirational speech or some other kind of cop out. Instead, he just blows the guy away. His character could have used more moments like this – he wordlessly implies that they have enough damn problems trying to eke out a living in the forest without having to worry about assholes causing friction within the group.
The climax unfortunately contains a moment that is simply laughable – the desperate survivors of the forest are surrounded by German troops and facing off against a tank. And just when it looks like our heroes are doomed, good old angry brother Zus shows up with his Russian troops to save the day. The moment is atrocious, not helped by the fact that Schreiber all but screams “Yeehaa” as he emerges from the woods blasting Nazis with a machine gun.
Despite this gung ho finish, Zus is still my favourite character. He knows that the only real way to deal with a bully is to stand up for yourself.
It’s not the best war movie ever made. It’s a little uneven, but it’s an exciting film with great performances and not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment