Defiance
Directed By: Edward Zwick
Starring: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, Jodhi May
Rated: R for violence and language.
Parental Notes: The violence here is not romanticized or glorified, it is simply there, and given that this is a film about World War II, there is plenty of it. There’s also a shot of a mass grave filled with the dead. This is not a movie for youngsters or the faint of heart, but it would serve as a wonderful jumping-off point for discussions with mature teenagers.
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There’s a moment in “Defiance” which sets it apart from the Hollywood cheese-fest it so easily could have been. Driven from their makeshift camps in the woods by a mortar attack, hundreds of Jews are fleeing Nazi troops when they find themselves on the shores of an immense body of water. A river? A bog? It’s not clear. They have children and elderly people in their numbers and are exhausted. They turn to their leader, Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig) for guidance. What should they do now? They cannot cross the water, surely. But there are Nazis not far behind them, so going back is impossible.
In a more feel-good sort of film, Tuvia would have had a moment of indecision and then told them what to do, his eyes blazing with manly conviction. Here, he crouches on the ground and shakes, overcome by his terror and indecision. It is someone else who figures out the best course of action, while Tuvia is incapacitated. It’s a very human moment in a film packed with human moments. These characters on the big screen are not perfect avatars of wartime struggle and suffering, they are real people.
“Defiance” is based on a true story, and it definitely feels like one. There are a few of the requisite dramatic wartime shots and it occasionally falls prey to cliche — but these characters are complicated and human, and nothing is simple.
In 1941 Belarus, near the beginning of World War II, the Nazis have invaded. Tuvia Bielski and his brothers, Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell), and young Aron (George MacKay) flee to the woods when their parents are murdered by Nazi-sympathizing police officers. It isn’t long before they run across other Jews fleeing similar fates. They themselves have been on the run from the law before (there’s mention of a family bootlegging operation), so they know what to do, and soon they are taking other refugee Jews under their wings.
The story grows organically, as the brothers make choices and then react to the consequences of those choices. There are conflicts about how active an anti-Nazi role to take, about what sorts of people to accept into the group, and so on. Tuvia must deal with Zus’s hotheadedness, insubordination among his followers, and other problems. The Nazis are ever-present but rarely-seen, a malevolent force out beyond the trees which occasionally makes terrifying incursions in attempts to capture these defiant Jews.
Craig and Schreiber deliver masterful performances. Their characters’ hearts are in the right place, but along the way they make mistakes and do a few truly dreadful things. Both actors show the humanity of their characters without sacrificing their strengths.
The story is a complex and messy one, which suggests to me that the director and screenwriters stuck close to the actual events. Real life is not tidy, especially during war. “Defiance” is all the more inspiring for its realism: that a group as flawed and human as these could accomplish something almost impossible gives one hope for the future.