Defiance

WWII. Bielorussia is the battlefield between the German lines and the Russian ones. Jews are hunted and persecuted as in the rest of Europe. There is never going to be enough talking and reminding of the shame of those years, but we have to admit that a lot of the movies dealing with this issue are quite similar.

Defiance is slightly different. We assist here to the evolution of a strong community of hunted Jews that use their familiarity of their woods to hide from the Nazis. Led by the Bielski brothers and in particular by the oldest one, Tuvia (Craig), they manage to survive for years. The predominat color of this movie is the greyish green of the woods: it follows you around everywhere, all the time, giving a real impression of the life these people must have endured for years. Cold and starvation will kill people in the way, but the community will keep accepting anyone asking for help. The very survival of their little society is what is amazing, considering that it is based on a true story. 

You don't have to imagine a democratic society. The leader tries to keep it just, to share equally, to provide for the group by stealing only from those who have more and who have not been stolen from before; but order must be mainteined and there is no time for a civil cause to deal with the villains within the community.

At the end of the day, this is a political movie: the attention on the mechanisms of the community, the discussions with the young intellectual, the meetings with the rabbis in the ghetto, the convenience alliance with the Russians are all evidence of this. On top of that, there is also the contrapposition of the different leadership styles of the oldest brothers, sometimes apart but always united.

A special mention goes to two bits of this film. One, is the scene in which some members of the community take it all out, and brutally, on a German soldier they captured. I still don't know how I feel about that scene, but it surely left a mark. The other bit I need to mention is that of the final sequences: leaving camp, running away moving so many people, trying to fight back, losing hope and then being brought back to it by a glimpse of young desperate genious. The direction, by Edward Zwick, expresses here all its potential, thanks to the rapidly cut scenes that help to feel the agitated and desperate rhythm.

An inspiring movie portraying the courage of a group of people holding on to their lives and to everything that is still human in them.

Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Clayton Frohman (screenplay), Edward Zwick (screenplay)
Stars: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell