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The Honor of Defiance on DVD
by Larson Hill
 In
the past decade, at a time of global conflict
and tension, movies centered around stories of
war have been hit and miss. Really, when it all
comes down to the brass tacks of box-office receipts,
emotional war stories often fall victim to the
front lines of timing. In some cases it's the
heat of battle and competition at the box-office
that sinks a cinematic ship. In the case of Defiance,
based on the harrowing true story of the Bielski
brothers in Nazi-occupied Poland during World
War II, the underperforming end result at the
box-office was a recipe of timing, competition,
and an organic battle between style and substance.
Although the reasons for telling such a courageous true story about self-preservation are obvious, the challenge for director Ed Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai) in bringing the Bielski brothers to life in Defiance was one similar to the odds the three Jewish farmers faced in mobilizing hundreds of displaced refugees in the woods of Poland to take a survival stand against the Nazis. First, let me just say that I liked Defiance and admire Zwick for tackling such sensitive subject matter. It's a story that should be told on a global scale. In fact, from a visual perspective, the movie is vibrantly alive and stunningly beautiful due to one of the best cinematographer's in the business, Eduardo Serra, who brought the likes of Zwick's Blood Diamond, M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, and the great Richard Matheson's What Dreams may Come to visual life.
 But given
the challenge of blending such serious subject
matter with a visual style that would help viewers
connect on a deeper, more real and emotional
level, Zwick and Serra - whether they realized
it or not - were working within the epic canvas
on a scale of Schindler's List. When the Bielski
brothers - Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber)
and Asael (Jamie Bell) - flee to the Polish
woods after their parents and neighbors are
gunned down by the Nazis, it soon becomes clear
that the cinematic canvas Defiance is painted
on is much too big to work as effectively as
it should given the decisions made. Although
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell
do the Bielski brothers justice, and the film
works on many levels, it's the modern visual
style of Defiance that feels more MTV than WWII.
For every high point in emotional subtext and conflict, as in the clash between alpha male brothers Tuvia and Zus who have two distinct perceptions of how to survive by non-violent means or aggressive vengeance, Defiance often fails to spend enough time on the true pain inside its characters in favor of momentum, bouncing from the forest to farms to the city to rescue more Jews and back to the woods to work with the Russians. All the while, Defiance attempts to focus on its three main characters but other events come calling just when you're looking to go just a bit deeper to find that true connection. The end result of Defiance is a decent outing with solid acting performances that aims high but tries to do too much in covering all emotional, political, and religious elements of the real story.
 Combined
with a dazzling visual style that keeps you
at a distance, all aspects of Defiance work
in a straight line that never delves as deep
as it could for maximum emotional, human and
symbolic effect. Despite its flaws and underutilized
potential, Defiance isn't a bad movie, and it's
a story that should be seen from a historical
human perspective, it simply could have been
so much more if perhaps less was more to maximize
dramatic potential.
As for Defiance on DVD, those looking for deeper insight into the true story of the Bielski brothers will find it in the special features. Four featurettes add nearly an hour of expanded value to the film in the form of a behind-the-scenes, making of segment with cast and crew interviews called "Defiance: Return to the Forest," a fantastic and emotionally powerful interview segment with the surviving family members of the group and the real Bielski brothers called "Children of the Otriad," a musically interesting segment on the film's haunting score by James Newton Howard in "Scoring Defiance," and a highly significant but brief black and white photo gallery of the some of the story's surviving real life refugees snapped by Ed Zwick. Rounding out the extras for Defiance is a decent and insightful commentary track by Ed Zwick, which ... do I really need to tell you what a commentary consists of after a decade of DVDs on the market? Pop it on, check it out, and if you like it, you like it... simple. I enjoyed the track given the true story behind the film since it expands on the approach to bringing the story to life and how it was all put together.
 Although
Defiance keeps you at arm's length given its
beautiful visuals, the film on DVD delves deeper
into the real story of the Bielski brothers
to balance a cinematic struggle between style
and substance thanks to the surviving family
members and once displaced real life characters.
Studio: Paramount Home Video
Release Date: June 2, 2009
Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 Color
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 [CC]
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Features:
- Commentary by Director Edward Zwick
- Return to The Forest: The Making of Defiance
- Children of the Otriad: The Families Speak
- Scoring Defiance
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