Rébellion

Plot: A trio of brothers in Nazi-occupied Belorussia hide in the woods to try and save their fellow Jews whilst fighting the Nazis.

Since the Second World War there has always been a certain amount of controversy amongst Jews over the near-total lack of resistance by the Jews to the Holocaust. Many great writers, amongst whom I particularly recommend Vassily Grossman, have tried to work out why the Jews (mostly) didn't fight back. Now comes DEFIANCE which tries to give us heroic Jewish partisans who protect their people and strike out at the Nazis whilst making the sort of speeches about freedom that American films inevitably make, regardless of period or suitability.

Unfortunately the film is a lie, which rather undermines its message. In reality the brothers collaborated with the Soviets during the joint Soviet-Nazi invasion of Poland. Understandably their neighbours loathed them for this so when the Nazis came the Bielskis were attacked and driven into the forest. There they set up a camp which gradually attracted more and more refugee Jews. Far from fighting the Nazis and attacking tanks, as the film depicts, they spent most of the war trying to survive. Which meant banditry as they attacked and robbed local villages. Not only that but they joined up with the Soviets again - one of the brothers might even have entered into the NKVD - and betrayed Polish nationalist (anti-Nazi, anti-Soviet) partisans. They even massacred a whole village of Poles on one occasion, even killing the women and children. So, not exactly the heroic freedom fighters the film depicts.

Of course the film is also terribly made so that doesn't matter too much. Whilst the script is mere fiction the direction is terrible. Moments that ought to be shocking, such as the discovery of a mass grave, are completely lacking in horror or sensitivity. The usual clichés - white horses, re-enactors with overly-clean uniforms, an ambush threatened when the enemy stop and one of them begins to urinate on the exact bush a partisan is hiding behind - are ticked off one by one. Despite costing several tens of millions of dollars the whole thing looks cheap. The film never achieves the horror, the immediacy or the reality of the partisan lifestyle. Nor is there any feeling of what eking out survival in the forest is really like. It doesn't exactly help either that two of the three leads, Daniel Craig and Jamie Bell, both look more like Nazis than the bad guys. The whole thing carries on in a wholly predictable manner to its obvious and unsatisfying conclusion. Watch COME AND SEE instead.

As Nazi forces sweep through Eastern Europe in 1941 the Bielski brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell) seek refuge in the deep forests on the border of Poland and Belorussia (Belarus). More and more desperate Jews join their ranks for common protection and to oppose the occupying Germans. How can they all survive in the woods during the next four years of war?

Released in 2008-2009, "Defiance" is a drama/war film that has a lot going for it: a story based on actual events, good actors, authentic locations (filmed in Lithuania, a mere 100 miles or so from the actual sites), effective cinematography and a quality score. I personally love survival-type films and "Defiance" fills the bill, although it's not great like, say, "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992).

The filmmakers throw in all kinds of dynamic things to maintain the viewer's attention: Numerous gun battles, an airstrike and a tank, which are all faithful Hollywood-isms. It would've been better to simply focus on the characters and their gritty survival story. How about a deeper examination of individuals reduced to basic necessities? What about a study of people stripped of all civilized influences, struggling with the animalistic side of their psyche, as depicted in the excellent "Sands of the Kalahari" (1965)? How about the immaterial yet palpable bond of love which unites and gives life even in the worst possible conditions? There's some of this, of course, but I wanted it to go deeper, like in "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965).

One thought-provoking scene concerns a man seeking to join the ever-growing group in the woods wherein he is asked what he does in order to determine how best to utilize his skills. He ponders it a moment and replies that he's "an intellectual." There's of course little use for an intellectual in such a forest community. The region was largely agrarian and so the peasant-types were skilled in at least one practical area as farmers, craftsmen or laborers. But what use was an "intellectual"?

How many of us are intellectuals and would largely be useless in such a scenario? We'd learn new skills real quick, huh? So the picture works on a what-if level: How long will our present society endure as it is before many of us are forced to live primitively in the sticks? If that happens, I hope you're more than just "an intellectual."

"Defiance" is worthwhile if the survival-in-the-woods plot piques your interest. It's superior to the similar "Tears of the Sun" (2003), but IMHO not quite as good as "Hornet's Nest" (1970) and "Sands of the Kalahari," although it's not far off.

The movie runs 2 hours, 17 minutes.

GRADE: B/B-

James Bond and Oscar winning director Ed Zwick take on the Nazis.

Saw a preview screening of DEFIANCE last week in Woodland Hills. Daniel Craig stars as Tuvia Bielski in the true WWII story of three Jewish brothers who hid in the Belorussian forests and built a community of partisan fighters, saving over 1200 Jews by war's end.

Liev Schreiber (Zus Bielski) and Jamie Bell (Asael Bielski) star alongside Craig as his two younger brothers. Both Craig and Schreiber give powerhouse performances as the older brothers competing for leadership, and Jamie Bell, who most recently starred in the abysmal Jumper, gives a surprisingly great performance as well.

Zwick has created one of the most beautiful and thought provoking films of his career and definitely one of the most Oscar worthy movies to hit cinemas in years. War and destruction has never been so captivating and moving. There have been dozens of war movies in recent years but none have left me caring so much or feeling so attached to the characters. My eyeballs wouldn't break from the screen for the full 120 mins, and by the film's end, I wasn't ready to stop watching. I can't wait for the release (which appears to be some time this winter) in order to see it again.

It's a superb film with a nice balance of heavy hitting action and intense drama, but if that's not enough to make you want to see it, just the fact that these on screen heroes existed in real life definitely make it worth the watch.

This is a WWII movie that doesn't hide or glamorize war but shows the intense reality of what happens when people band together against overwhelming evil and survive.

A solid 8.5/10

This is an interesting film about a bunch of Jews commanded by the Bielski brothers taking the Belorussia forests to shelter themselves from Nazi criminals . It is completely set in the woods which it does some claustrophobic . Splendid acting by all-star-cast . Nicely photographed by Eduardo Serra in colorful palette . Emotive and sensitive musical score by the great composer James Newton Howard. This is a true story , worth telling and stunningly directed in old-style by Edward Zwick .

The picture is inspired on real events based on the novel titled ¨Defiance : The Balski partisans¨ , being well adapted by Clayton Frohman and Edward Zwick . The actual events are the followings : The Bielski group's partisan (three brothers finely performed by Daniel Craig , Liev Schriever , Jamie Bell) activities were aimed to hold the Jewish community together and fight against the Nazis and their collaborators, such as Belarusian volunteer policemen or local inhabitants who had betrayed or killed Jews. They also conducted sabotage missions . The Nazi regime offered a reward for assistance in the capture of Tuvia (Daniel Craig) Bielski, and in 1943, led major clearing operations against all partisan groups in the area. Some of these groups suffered major casualties, but the Bielski partisans fled safely to a more remote part of the forest , and continued to offer protection to the noncombatants among their band . The Bielski group would raid nearby villages and forcibly seize food ; on occasion peasants who refused to share their food with the partisans were the subject of violence and even murder. This caused hostility towards the partisans from peasants in the villages, though some would help the Jewish partisans.The Bielski partisans eventually became affiliated with Soviet organisations in the vicinity of the Naliboki Forest under Russian General (in the movie Panchenko is played by Ravil Isyanov). Several attempts by Soviet partisan commanders to absorb Bielski fighters into their units were resisted, such that the Jewish partisan group retained its integrity and remained under Tuvia Bielski's command. This allowed him to continue in his dedication to protect Jewish lives along with engaging in combat activity, but would also prove a problem later on . The Bielski partisan leaders split the group into two units, one named Ordzhonikidze, led by Zus (Liev Schreiber), and the other Kalinin, commanded by Tuvia (Daniel Craig). According to partisan documentation , Bielski fighters from both units killed a total of 381 enemy fighters , sometimes during joint actions with Soviet groups. 50 members of the group were killed. In the summer of 1944, when the Soviet counteroffensive began in Belarus and the area was taken over by the Soviets, the Kalinin unit , numbering 1,230 men, women and children, emerged from the forest and marched into Nowogrodek.Despite their previous collaboration with the Soviets, relations quickly worsened. The NKVD started interrogating the Bielski brothers about the rumours of loot they had reportedly collected during the war, and about their failure to "implement socialist ideals in the camp". Asael Bielski (Jamie Bell) was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army and fell in the Battle of Königsberg in 1945. The remaining brothers escaped Soviet-controlled lands, emigrating West. After the war, Tuvia Bielski returned to Poland, then emigrated to present-day Israel in 1945. Tuvia and Zus eventually settled in the United States. They operated a successful trucking business. When Tuvia died in 1987, he was buried in Long Island, NY, but a year later, at the urging of surviving partisans in Israel, he was exhumed and given a hero's funeral at the hillside graveyard in Jerusalem. His wife, Lilka (Alexa Davalos), was buried beside him in 2001 . None of the Bielskis ever sought any recognition or reward for their actions.

During the II World War the Germans invaded the Belarussian soils, initiated there ultimate genocide, partly with the help of local civil servants. Jews are first to be stigmatised, thrown in throes into ghettos from which there is no return. The Bielski family of three peasant Jewish brothers: Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell) are amongst the very few to withstand oppression forming their own brigade in the local forests - aimed at protecting and defending what is left of their kin. Soon become almost folkloric heroes - Jews who fight, not just let themselves be slaughtered by the Nazi forces.

Based on historical figures the story is far from meticulous, instead taking vast creative liberties, which - knowing the true history - seems almost a waste of a good story. Some aspects are 'Hollywoodized', but thankfully the backbone remains strong and never backs away from confronting morality during total war with that during peace. The most striking moment in the movie involves Tuvia having to assert his commanding position in the brigade, else all he constructed would be at risk. Reaction must be brutal and relentless, but the reality justifies even cold-blooded murder of one of his own. Such aspects are touched throughout, when severe choices must be made, and the Bielski brothers are sure to make them, a far cry from the more clear-cut actions of Arthur Schindler.

In Poland the movie received some criticism for omitting the darker side of Bielski actions, inclusive of fighting Polish freedom militia, but honestly I had no issue with this (the 'russicized' English accents of characters and poor grammar of the tidbits of Russian were much more detrimental), as the brigade was portrayed perfectly as a self-serving and brutal unit devoted to saving those whom they protect, irrespective of external pain they bring. "Defiance" ventures into grey areas of heroism, where the saviours are dabbled in blood and far from respectable, instead hateful, vengeful, but at the same time necessary. As the small group expands to a self-sustaining society living in the Belarussian woods, the stance of the brothers grows increasingly and justifiably uncompromising. Although the script attempts to whitewash the Bielskis by offering them lines such as "We will only take from those who can afford it", making them into Robin Hood's seemed to trivialise them, instead it would have been better served to follow the logic of survival needs. The feature could have also probably done better without the trivial inclusions of forced dramaturgy or a big getaway with Bielskis figthing tanks, instead staying with the bare basics...

Nonetheless "Defiance" works best as a fiction, not as a recount of history. Here reading one of the monographes dedicated to the Bielski brothers would be better served.