1,800 JEWS ARE SAVED FROM EXTERMINATION IN DEFIANCE
Knowing that the Nazis are rounding you up because you are Jewish, what would you do? The conventional answer—flight or passive acceptance of fate—leaves out resistance as an option. In Byelorussia, one form of resistance was to hide in a forest (though filming is in Lithuania). Defiance brings that true story to the screen from the book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec. Directed by Edward Zwick, the film Defiance has some similarity to the director’s early film Glory (1990), which won a Political Film Society nomination in the category Human Rights. The film provides details of the perils of Nazi pursuit, bountyhunting Byelorussian police collaborators, a few battle scenes, nature’s bitter cold, and inadequate food and is definitely not for the fainthearted. The Bielski brothers, leaders of the encampment who were formerly thieves and smugglers, clash as well. Zus Bielski (played by Live Schreiber) prefers revengefully to shoot as many Nazis as he can, so for a time he joins up with the Soviet resistance led by anti-Semitic Soviet People’s Army leader Viktor Panchenko (played by Ravil Isyanov). Tuvia Bielski (played by Daniel Craig) provides practical rules by which the community can live together, particularly when the foodhunter men insist on eating larger portions to eat than the foodpreparers and foodeaters. Sometimes the brothers are united, sometimes divided. Their younger third brother, Assael (played by Jamie Bell), does not know with whom to take sides but ultimately acts heroically. Titles at the end inform filmviewers that the community built a school and a hospital. The strength of Jewish culture, which has survived against lesser odds, is the main message of the film, which has been nominated for best film exposé of 2008. MH
GOOD IS NOT ABOUT A GOOD MAN
In Good, Germans once again can pat themselves on the back for not being “real” Nazis. The story is a fictional account about how someone unsympathetic to Nazism in 1933 (a “good” German) becomes a member of the SS during World War II (a “bad” German). Based on a stageplay by C. P. Taylor, the film focuses on erudite professor John Halder (played by Viggo Mortensen), who writes a novel about mercy killing that impresses Hitler so much that he is asked to write an oped on the subject and to join the Nazi Party. One focus is on the suffering of his ailing mother (played by Gemma Jones), who at one point tries to commit suicide by overdosing. Another focus is on his longtime Jewish friend Maurice (played by Jason Isaacs), whom he tries in vain to protect. A third pressure on him comes from SS officer Freddie (played by Steven Mackintosh), who keeps an eye on him in case he missteps. Meanwhile, amorous student Anne (played by Jodie Whittaker) aggressively pursues him into bed, prompting a separation from his wife Helen (played by Anastasia Hille). The obvious aim of the story, to demonstrate that myriad cross-pressures force Halder into caving in to self-preservation choices, is an unconvincing paradigm to explain why so many Germans supported the Nazis. The film ends with a macabre scene in which Halder is searching for his friend Maurice at a concentration camp, where Jewish musicians are playing music by Jewish composer Gustav Mahler while their brethren are queuing up to enter a gas chamber. Directed by Vincente Amorim, Good is also hampered by the use of English accents, discourse, and mannerisms, as a German filmmaker might not have insisted on the modest British demeanor portrayed in the film. MH