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Defiance (DVD)
Year: 2009
Rating: M
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, George Mackay, Liev Schreiber
Distributor: Roadshow
The Film: 4.0
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5
Director Edward Zwick is a rarity: his films - regardless of their faults - actually mean something. A not-exactly-prolific filmmaker, Zwick labours over his projects, polishing and fine-tuning them until they're perfectly constructed and beautifully burnished. He's a methodical, thoughtful, sensitive director with a burning sense of social justice. He also has an undeniable flair for the epic, and a striking ability to keep an audience entertained while simultaneously making them think. All of his best work as a director (Glory, Courage Under Fire, Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai) has been big in scope, and equally expansive in intention.
Zwick continues his run of epic, meaningful films with the WW2 drama Defiance, which is based on the true story of the Bielski brothers - tough but sensitive Tuvia (Daniel Craig pitches his performance at just the right level, perfectly straddling heroism and everyman status), hard headed Zus (another fine turn from the always excellent Liev Schreiber) and young Asael (a sweet and engaging Jamie Bell) - three Jewish farmers who escape from Nazi-occupied rural Poland and join up with a band of Russian resistance fighters. Using a mix of cunning and brute strength, the trio ultimately help to save over a thousand of their fellow Jews from the Nazi forces, while also setting up an ersatz refugee community in the dank, damp forests of Europe.
Edward Zwick proves himself to be the perfect director for this material, fusing the personal with a sense of big-picture vision to expert effect. The heart of Defiance lies in the relationship between the three brothers, and Zwick (who co-adapted Nechama Tec's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans with Clayton Frohman) paints them in rich yet believable shades. The film looks beautiful in a painterly way, and its themes are never spelled out in black-and-white terms. In short, it's the kind of strong, adult film that Zwick has built his impressive career on. Though he falters in a couple of key action sequences, and the story seems to end way before it should (the eventual fates of the brothers - as described in end title cards - would have made for great cinema), Zwick has crafted another fine addition to his canon.