Defiance (2008)

Directed by: Edward Zwick | 129 minutes | drama, war | Actors: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, Allan Corduner, Mark Feuerstein, Tomas Arana, Jodhi May, Kate Fahy, Iddo Goldberg, Iben Hjejle, Martin Hancock, Ravil Isyanov, Jacek Koman, George MacKay

A true story about the persecution of the Jews in World War II. Hopefully one with an original approach, is the first thought – while your conscience says the sad history cannot be handed down enough. Filming a true story is no mean feat in any case; the art is to find the right balance between documentary and dramatic means. Director Edward Zwick (‘Blood Diamond’), who produced the film with the Dutchman Pieter Jan Brugge, did not make it easy for himself and it must be said: with ‘Defiance’ he has made an authentic film according to Hollywood standards, in which the protagonists use both English when Russian is spoken. Plus, all the Oscar ingredients are there: the good people are in a bind; the bad have the power; to ease the suffering, the courageous Bielski brothers warm themselves to the most beautiful women of their resistance group (Alexa Davalos; Iben Hjelje); some humanity is not alien to them.

However, ‘Defiance’ does not linger in the memory, it contains too many clichés for that – we are familiar with the bickering between intellectual and more popular Jews in the camps; ‘Defiance’ is also a fairly flat film: the dramatic peaks are sparse and fall from the sky, like the fight that leads to the separation of the brothers Tuvia and Zus. The film then ripples to the end, in which we still get to see beautiful action scenes, but the human relationships are not explored in depth. Zwick remains on the surface and therefore does not penetrate to the essence of refugee existence – being hunted. And we are left with even more questions. For example, the film only describes the first part of the three years that the Bielski partisans roamed in the Belarusian forests and the rest is concluded with a text for the credits. Moreover, the real members of the resistance are accused by Polish researchers of having participated in a mass slaughter of the local population. Isn’t the overall picture more interesting and how could the Bielskis – in ‘Defiance’ rather a group of sparsely armed refugees than an actual resistance group – hide from the Nazis for so long?

True or not: the rules of Hollywood films are different from those of historians, but whoever wants to make history with Holocaust drama will in any case have to create an appealing main character, such as Oskar Schindler (‘Schindler’s List’) or György Köves (‘Fateless’). ‘); in ‘Defiance’ this is not the case, partly because key figure Daniel Craig is overplayed by Liev Schreiber.