February 19, 2009: Defiance
Defiance was the last movie I was scheduled to see before the Oscar ceremony in late February. There were a couple of documentary and foreign-language films I had not been able to see anywhere, but that usually happens. Defiance was nominated for Best Original Score.
Defiance is based on the true story of a community of Jews who lived in the forests of Belarus during World War II to avoid being sent to concentration camps. It started with two brothers escaping capture after their family farm was burned down, but as the word spread, more and more people escaped into the woods where the German troops were less likely to find them, and growing pains were encountered in their little community as this forest living dragged on for years and all the usual societal roles had to be filled. Tensions were always high since food was very limited, and leadership of the group was also a constant battle as the brothers disagreed at times, and were challenged by others on occasion.
Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, is the leading man here, and there was some snickering about how this blond, blue-eyed man could convincingly appear to be Jewish. Well, as it turns out, appearances are the least of anyone’s concern out in the forest, so it kind of works out naturally that it doesn’t really matter what he looks like. He speaks with a reasonable accent, and he has the charisma of a natural leader, which is what really matters. Liev Schreiber plays his brother, and he’s solid as always – I’ve always felt that he’s underrated as a character actor.
I’m singularly unqualified to evaluate the quality of a movie score, so all I can say is that the music was fine, and I couldn’t tell whether or not it was the best of the year. It didn’t win, another victim of the big Slumdog Millionaire sweep.
I’m conflicted about this movie, because the story was so engrossing and original, yet the execution was cliched and overblown. My only real complaint, if I had to boil it down, is that it was a bit “movie-ish”, in that everything is distilled to symbolic events and characters rather than being an organic flow with believable people and events. Was there really only one pregnant woman the camp had to deal with during all those years? (They had a strict no-pregnancy rule, to keep the population under control.) Was there really only one belligerent asshole challenging authority as well as the safety of everyone, who had to be emphatically put in his place? Of course not, but in a movie, you need to make the point with a single event in a single scene, and hope that it’s clear that this is just an example.
There was real intensity, and the viewers are forced to place themselves into the situation. People were getting sick with typhus all the time and constantly coughing. It was impossible not to think about how disgusting the living conditions must have been, out in the woods with limited food and water, through winter and summer. Also, we were forced to consider times of war and how we would react. I would probably run away and refuse to fight, and if I were persecuted I’d do what I could to escape, but where do you run to?
In the end, this charismatic but sometimes harsh leader saved some 1200 people from concentration camps. His brother felt he had to do something more proactive and disappeared for some time to fight with better-equipped Russians against the Germans, but eventually returned home because of rampant (though not murderous) anti-Semitism among the Russians. The cliches outweighed the thinking points for me, so while I’m glad the movie was brought to my attention, I wouldn’t actively recommend it.
Cliched movie, but raises harrowing ideas.
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