DEFIANCE - DVD review

You would think that having a real-life World War II story of heroism and self-sacrifice starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber and directed by Edward Zwick ("Glory," "The Last Samurai," "Blood Diamond") might ensure a great movie. However, things are not always as they appear. The 2008 release "Defiance" strives so hard to be earnest, truthful, and authentic that it tends to scrub away some of its human touch. It's a story that ought to be heartbreaking and ennobling, yet much of it comes across as little more than ordinary.

"1941: Germany occupies Belorussia. SS death squads and local police round up Jews. Within weeks 50,000 are murdered. 1,000,000 more await deportation and death."

Craig and Schreiber play brothers, Tuvia and Zus Bielski, Russian Jews who lose their father and their farm to the Nazis. Together with their younger brothers, Asael and Aron (Jamie Bell and George MacKay), they retreat to the surrounding forest they know well, where they hide out and plot what next to do. There in the forest they find numerous other refugees hiding out, huddling together, and looking for direction. The Bielskis reluctantly choose to lead them, like Moses in the desert, and help them pull through. The group become criminals, hunted by the Germans, and resistance fighters, stealing what they need to get along and killing whatever Nazis they can. As time goes on, their numbers swell.

Tuvia becomes their commander, but inevitable sibling rivalry rears its head, and the two brothers eventually separate, Zus, the wilder and more headstrong brother, joining a unit of the Russian army fighting in the woods. While Tuvia wants mainly to keep the community alive and well ("Our revenge is to live"), Zus wants more tangible results. He mainly wants revenge, to kill Germans, so it would appear that both brothers get what they need.

The story unfolds rather simply, with Tuvia leading the refugees-turned-fighters from camp to camp through the Russian forests, and Zus doing his best to live with the anti-Jewish prejudice among the Russian soldiers in his unit. (Officially, under Communism at the time, all comrades were equal, but in reality not even Communism could destroy old hatreds.)

"Defiance" tells a sad and harrowing tale, made all the more affecting for having really happened. We expect to find little joy in the narrative, yet that may be the film's undoing; it's so unrelentingly grim. I mean, you've got hundreds of people starving in the wilderness, surrounded by mass murderers dedicated to hunting them down and exterminating them. Yes, the heroism under such hardship is an inspiration, but understand that it's going to make for a largely depressing film, too. Then add in the film's extreme length, 136 minutes, and you get a fairly long haul.

Director Zwick does his best to stick to the facts and not add much in the way of extraneous melodrama to the story. This, too, has the effect of making the story seem more bleak and severe than he might otherwise have had it if, say, he gone the route of "The Great Escape," where the filmmakers dramatized their real-life story with equal shares of humor, excitement, and adventure. With "Defiance," the movie reminds one of an old black-and-white newsreel account of Nazi concentration camps and their sad-faced, emaciated victims, except that here the movie is in color, and we know in advance that most of the participants will pull through.

The leads are strong, as we might expect. Craig is at his steely-eyed, clench-jawed, tight-lipped best, and Schreiber is properly willful, obstinate, and obstreperous. They pretty much carry the picture, especially when they're on screen together. Nevertheless, the filmmakers never flesh out their personalities very well, leaving them closer to iconic symbols than living, breathing human beings. Likewise, the supporting characters are primarily representative types--the teacher, the intellectual, the philosopher, the clockmaker, the troublemaker, and such--rather than distinct individuals.

Be that as it may, even though the film is mostly somber, it's not that there aren't some tender moments in it; men and women living for years in the forest, you're going to get some touching relationships. Zwick juxtaposes such moments with scenes of intense violence to create the movie's most dramatic passages.

While "Defiance" is an appropriately somber motion picture, its seriousness works against its coming to life, and one winds up accepting it as one would a good documentary. Not that a well-made documentary isn't a good thing, but we expect more of a docudrama like "Defiance." We know in advance that over the course of the war Tuvia and Zus will lead their people from one forest camp to another, barely eating, and fighting to survive. We know they will hold on to their humanity and not become animals, which is hard when one considers the enemy has descended into barbarism and butchery on a scale the world has seldom seen. What we need is to feel it rather than just see it.

If the film doesn't quite capture that ultimate mood of freedom, redemption, and release we seek as viewers, chalk it up to director's Zwick's unyielding desire for accuracy and truth at the expense of sentiment and heart.

The MPAA gave "Defiance" an R rating for violence and for the repeated use of "the word that won the war."

Video:
Zwick shot most of the film on location in Lithuania and framed the picture for theatrical release at 1.85:1. Paramount transferred the film to Blu-ray in anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Detailing and object delineation is quite good most of the time, although one sees the image fading into softness from time to time. One also notices a slight bluish tinge to the image, occasionally a bit monochromatic and glossy, no doubt directorial decisions on Zwick's part. Despite being an essentially dark movie, with lots of nighttime and dense forest shots, it shows up predominantly sharp and clear even in standard definition.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio does everything it's called upon to do with subtlety, grace, and robustness in turn. Dialogue is clean and natural; the midrange smooth and firm, if a trifle bright; the treble nicely extended; and the bass deep and pounding. The surround activity is generally of the environmental kind, with noises of the forest predominating, water, running water, birds, breezes, creaking trees, thunder, rain, and the like. Yet action scenes explode with dynamic impact and all speakers blazing.

Extras:
The extras on the disc are every bit as serious and weighty as the movie itself. First, there's the obligatory audio commentary by the director, Edward Zwick. Then, there are three featurettes that cover the movie's background and filming: "Defiance: Return to the Forest" is twenty-six minutes long and provides behind-the-scenes looks at the moviemaking; "Children of the Otriad: The Families Speak" is thirteen minutes long and allows us to hear from the children and grandchildren of the Bielskis; and "Bielski Partisan Survivors" is a two-minute montage of photographs.

The bonus materials conclude with twenty scene selections; previews of other Paramount releases, both at start-up and in the main menu; and English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and Spanish subtitles.

Parting Shots:
"Always hunted, their number continued to grow. By war's end, 1200 had survived. The Bielskis never sought recognition for what they did."

No one can deny the importance of what the Bielskis accomplished or the lasting significance of their heroic deeds. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't quite capture the spark of their achievements or do much more than scratch the surface of their identity. Although one can admire the characters and their exploits, one can hardly say the movie inspires or uplifts as it should. We see the outer facets of the situations, but even in its lengthy format, we do not see much more. That said, the movie is a noble effort on the part of director and co-writer Edward Zwick, especially in his attempt to let the actual events of the day tell their story without too much histrionic embellishment. Whether it works for you is another story.