Akito HirataReview - Defiance
February 9th 2009 03:58
On the run from the Germans in Belorussia, the brothers head to the forest where they grew up in order to stay alive. On their journey to the forest they encounter a number of other Jews in hiding from the Russians who join their camp. Tuvia and Zus, the two older brothers are as different as brothers could be and this is made particularly clear from the outset. Tuvia is interested in staying alive in order to avenge the death of others while Zus is more interested in fighting and killing for their cause.
The cinematography in Defiance is top notch particularly in capturing the coldness of the bleak winter and the fight scenes occurring in the film. Edward Zwick once again teams up with Eduardo Serra as Cinematographer who also worked with him on Blood Diamond.
As you can expect there is not much humour to be found within this film. Lazar, one of the characters in the forest, is regular with his incompetence and at one point throughout the film announces, "who goes there" to Zus as he passes by. The reply "We go here, Lazar. You only say 'halt, who goes there' when you don't know who goes there. We go there."
The movie does have its melancholic and predictable moments and some of the lines uttered border on eye-rolling actions but this is largely due to the fact that this movie seemed to be geared towards the mainstream movie market. I actually thought there would be more fighting in this film than was shown and for this reason I think it sits better in the drama category than categorised as a typical war film. Love stories are written in but are only secondary to the rest of the action although the first mention of "forest wives" did make me chuckle.
Edward Zwick is the director of Defiance and is most well known for his directing stints with Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai. The subjects he chooses to work with are noteworthy and this is certainly the case with this film. Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai in my opinions were good films but failed to make it to the great league. The same could also be said for Defiance.
Voyage Review: 3.5/5
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