Defiance: Anne Frank, get your gun
Friday, January 16th, 2009
ARMED AND DANGEROUS: Brothers Zus (Liev Schreiber, left) and Tuvia (Daniel Craig)
Like the Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie, the wartime drama Defiance seeks to put an asterisk beside the conventional wisdom of World War II history.
The sound-byte version of WWII would say something like, “The evil Germans victimized the Jews and threatened Europe until the Americans came to the rescue,” which may be true, but not complete. Valkryie challenges the blanket “evil German” preconception with its account of conscientious Nazi officers who tried to topple Hitler’s government. Meanwhile, Defiance corrects the “Jewish victim” stereotype with a rousing account of Jews in Western Poland who took up arms rather than passively wait for German invaders.
In adapting Nechama Tec’s book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, director/co-writer Edward Zwick tends to flatten wartime moral complexities in the name of telling a cracking good story. Less nuanced than Zwick’s Glory or The Last Emperor, Defiance nevertheless makes a thrilling action drama of non-soldiers combating not just vicious storm troopers, but also the harshness of the elements. (more…)
