Defiance
Rated: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Directed by: Edward Zwick
Starring:
Daniel Craig - Tuvia Bielski
Liev Schreiber - Zus Bielski
Jamie Bell - Asael Bielski
Alexa Davalos - Lilka Ticktin
Mia Wasikowska - Chaya Dziencielsky
How many Holocaust movies can we make before we trivialize it? How many can we make before we stop learning its lessons (provided we haven't already ignored them—and we have) and it just becomes another shallow attempt at some Oscars? I'm not sure but while Defiance doesn't necessarily cross that line, it does remind us that the line is there and it is close.
The point of pretty much all Holocaust movies is that the Jews are a beleaguered yet resilient people and Defiance is no different. Led by a band of Jewish brothers played by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell, a small group of Jewish survivors hide in the back woods of Belorussia (today Belarus) to avoid their Nazi oppressors. I have to give director Edward Zwick some credit on this point alone because most of his movies (Glory, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond) involve a benevolent majority helping a downtrodden minority.
Defiance isn't a bad movie but it's a constantly frustrating one. It kept reminding me of that line of "Just another Holocaust movie" because there are moments where Defiance almost becomes something more. I never expected moral ambiguity from Zwick but there are points where he achieves it, almost by accident. And yet it seems like as soon as he realizes that the audience may feel conflicted about who's good and who's bad and who's doing the right thing and who's doing the wrong thing, he gets back to keeping it simple. This is made most evident by Schreiber's character, Zus. While Craig's character, Tuvia, is the more romantic ideologue who gives speeches while riding a white stallion (I don't care if it actually happened or not; it looks cheesy), Zus is the practical one, the one who has survival foremost on his mind. It's this conflict between basic survival and maintaining civilization where Defiance gets interesting and Zwick runs in the opposite direction. Zus basically drops out of the film in the middle of the second act, reduced to little more than a plot device. It's a big loss especially since Schreiber is such a strong actor.
There's one scene that gets by Zwick and it has the kind of real ambiguity that could have made Defiance a memorable flick rather than just another Holocaust movie. In the scene, the survivors have captured an SS officer. Coming face-to-face with someone they can unleash all their pain and loss upon, they mercilessly beat him to death. Granted, none of the main characters engage in this beating (it's so unbecoming), but it's as close as the film gets to understanding that survival, even in the most clear-cut cases of good vs. evil, can still be horrific.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
1.16.09