By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor
Defiance is exactly the kind of movie that Tropic Thunder skewers: a big-budget Hollywood effort that converts a tragic historical event into action-packed bombast (in Tropic Thunder, it’s Vietnam; in this, it’s the Holocaust). The heroes are brawny and butt-kicking, the chicks are gorgeous, the one-liners are catchy, and the guns are super-cool, but is this the kind of film that does justice, in any way, to the horrors of the Holocaust? The Holocaust certainly had its heroes, but applying the Rambo or even the Braveheart template (which this film frequently resembles) to mass suffering and genocide seems inappropriate at the least. Director Ed Zwick, who helmed The Last Samurai and Glory, clearly has his heart in the right place and is a skilled craftsman at big-budget blockbusters, which mitigates some of the problems. Indeed, Defiance clips along at two hours with nary a lull, and will likely please the masses, even if it bypasses raw pathos for melodramatic characterizations and is generally too rooted in the conventions of action films.
The film centers on the true story of two Russian-Jewish brothers, played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber who establish a secret camp of Jewish refugees in the wilderness during the Nazi occupation of Belarus. Tuvia (Craig) anoints himself leader of the camp, which grows to over a thousand. Zus (Schreiber) the tougher and more cutthroat of the two, eventually joins the Russian partisans fighting the Nazis despite their complicity in anti-Semitic raids. The film depicts life at the camp while interposing action sequences of Zus at combat alongside the Russians.
By far, the film’s most serious and admirable aspect is the dynamic between Zus’s imperative to fight against the Nazis in combat versus Tuvia’s imperative to offer a stable society to as many Jews as possible. A scene that juxtaposes the marriage of younger brother Asael (Jamie Bell) in Tuvia’s village with Zus engaged in combat elegantly articulates the role animalistic violence takes in saving the persecuted Jews, as well as the preservation of civilized society. One is a fight for their lives. One is a fight for their souls.
Defiance aims to uplift, not to depress, but there is a way to honor heroism without reducing the suffering inherent in any story set among persecuted Jews during the Holocaust. Zwick does not emotionally invest us in a single character that perishes. The violence depicted is brutal, but lacks consequences. All of the main characters are seemingly invincible, dodging bullets with Neo-like maneuverability. A climactic scene involving a Nazi ambush is particularly offensive in how divorced from reality (and historical accuracy) it is. Characters get punched and beaten with little wounds. And the hygiene of all of the main characters, except the lone “bad guy” in the camp, is impeccable.
Attempts at tragedy fail due to histrionic execution. One scene clumsily that aspires to poignancy involves Zus finding out about the death of his wife and children. In quick succession, he hunkers down, vomits, and smashes his head against a tree. The camera then zooms onto his face, a steady stream of fake blood spurting down Liev Schreiber’s head. Over-the-top acting and an inappropriate makeup cue, which attempt to make the moment bigger instead distract us from the gravity and devastating simplicity of the content.
