Posted on 01/20/2009 7:29:14 AM PST by Welcome2thejungle
Thumbs up! Go see it. It is an excellent escape from all the BHO hoopla 24/7 on cable news. In the wake of Valkyrie, there is a new WWII called Defiance which I highly recommend. As with Valkyrie, this movie covers a subject which has, heretofore, received little attention from Hollyweird filmmakers. Defiance takes place on the Eastern Front in WWII and is the story of the Bielski brothers, two Jewish men who organized a partisan unit operating behind German lines in the thick primeval forests of Belorussia, now called Belarus.
First a little background. The Eastern Front during WWII was, by far, the scene of the bloodiest and most savage warfare in the annals of human history and warfare. It was fought on an unbelievably immense territory ranging from the Arctic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. From Leningrad to the gates of Moscow, to the banks of the Volga and the Caucus Mountains. And it was fought between two ideologically driven totalitarian regimes who both committed savage atrocities against eachother culminating in the deaths of twenty million Soviet citizens and at least two million German soldiers not to mention their Fascist alllies including the Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians.
Hitler's decision to invade the USSR defied all logic. Even the usually spineless Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel strenously argued against invading the Soviet Union. It's not that Hitler didn't possess a superior army, he did. It's not that Stalin hadn't ruined his army by having most of his senior military commanders shot in a series of bloody purges, he did. It's not that millions of oppressed and deprived Soviet citizens didn't initially welcome the German Army with open arms, they did. There were three primary factors which made the invasion of the USSR simply an impossible undertaking from the get go: (1) History: Had Hitler studied Napoleon as carefully as he studied Frederick the Great, he would have never repeated Napoleon's biggest mistake of invading Russia to begin with, especially without winter clothing for his troops. (2) Geography: The USSR had approximately nine million square miles covering eight time zones and one eighth of the world's landmass. How on earth do you invade, subjugate, and effectively occupy such an immense territory? (3) Climate: The USSR has some of the harshest climatic conditions on the entire planet. It wasn't unsual for winter temperatures to fall to 30, 40, or even 50 degrees below zero. During the Spring and Autumn months the USSR or Russia whatever you want to call it, is subjected to massive monsoon-like rains turning the countryside into a sea of thick oozing mud burying Hitler's mighty panzers up to their turrents in mud. The USSR had few paved roads in 1941 and most long term transport was carried out on railway lines which were always prime targets of the Luftwaffe, the Soviet airforce, as well as partisan units operating behind enemy lines. For these reasons all major German blitzkrieg offensive operations on the Eastern Front were carried out only in the brief summer months of 1941,1942, and 1943. After the largest tank battle in history at Kursk in July 1943, there were no major German offensives on the Eastern Front for the duration of the war.
This brings us to the Bielski brothers operating a Jewish partisan unit far behind enemy lines in Belorussia. Belorussia was tailor made for partisan operations. Much of its territory is covered by the vast Pripet Marshes, a vast network of swamps, bogs, streams, and wetlands surrounded by vast primeval forests. It is here where Jewish survivors fled in the wake of the Nazis. Many Jews were rounded up and placed in ghettoes later to be deported to Nazi death camps in Poland. Many others were simply shot on the spot by roving Einsatzengruppen mobile death squads often with the cooperation of the local population.
Fleeing into the vast Belorussian forests were the Bielski brothers whose parents and spouses were murdered by the Nazis. They organized other fleeing Jews into a cohesive partisan unit and linked up with other Soviet partisan groups operating behind German lines. The acting in this movie is truly excellent by all involved. The lead actor, Daniel Craig, bears a striking physical resemblance to Steve McQueen. There is no Hollyweird formulaic shtick exhibited by Tom Cruise in Valkyrie. This movie is very realistic, very credible, you feel like you are really there.
Hollyweird rarely puts out a good product these days. But when it does, I will be watching it enthusiastically at the big screen. This one deserves a big thumbs up. Go see it. You won't be disappointed.
I’m looking forward to seeing this movie.
Hubby and I already have plans to see that and Gran Torino.....
Your diplomacy policy is sh*t
Grand Torino is fun; lots of unexpected giggles.
I agree, wife and i saw it this weekend... very well acted and a good story to boot.
Yeah, like the priest & Asian girl's complete lack of acting ability. Every line in every scene spoken in the exact same tone.
You're right....about the movie and the new president.
Thanks for the review. Its one of the few movies that looked interesting. I always wait for the DVD and was just horribly disappointed with “Appaloosa” last night.
I saw Valkyrie and enjoyed it. Hubby and I plan to see Defiance this weekend, hopefully.
Thanks for the review and historical lead-in. Very much appreciated.
My guys (husband and son) saw it on Saturday night. They both gave it 2 thumbs up!
Our theater advertised it when we went too see the Hitler movie two weeks ago, but has not put it on. It is in a theater 30 miles away in another city, but not here. Strange they showed the advertisements of it, but did not put on the movie.
I plan to watch this movie although a offspring of Polish immigrants who lived through WW2, I wish hollywood would reconize that it wasn’t just the Jews who were butchered and it wasn’t just the nazi’s who were doing the killing........
the Russians were just as guilty—
The Katyn massacre
I think some movies are best seen at the theater though, and IMO, that's the case for Defiance. I know it sucks to go to the theater these days, but when I went to Defiance Sunday afternoon, there were fewer than a dozen people there. Great movie, but I'd still like to read the book and see how true to the facts they are. I've heard they glossed over some of their activities with the Russian communists.
Today’s events remind me more of Deliverance ... and I’m sure everyone who has seen the movie knows which scene.
Saw it last weekend. Thought it was OK, a bit long and full of Hollywood stereotypes. I’d put it on a par with ‘Valkyrie’ and behind ‘Doubt’ and ‘Frost/Nixon’. And it beat the alternative, which would have been ‘Marley and Me’.
I totally agree. Both sides committed savage atrocities. When the Soviets invaded Germany in 1945, practically every single female, no matter what age, was raped. And of course the Soviet slaughter of Polish officers in the Katyn forest was a hideous atrocity. The sheer level of slaughter and brutality on the Eastern Front defies imagination. Even the enormous scale of the titanic battles fought there defies western sensibilities. For example, more people died in the Battle of Stalingrad then the sum total of all U.S. military fatalities from The Revolutionary War to Iraq. The military and civilian losses on the Eastern Front as well as the butchery exhibited by both sides was simply staggering.
She has criticized the director for not supporting Israel as it defends itself against Muslim terrorists, today's Nazis. She says Hollywood loves the dead Jews, but not the living ones. She interviewed the director, who is Jewish, but could not get him to say anything positive about Jews defending themselves today. We could also use a movie about the Warsaw uprising by Jews.
The Nazis, German socialists, were strong practitioners of gun control. It sure helped them to deal with their “Jewish problem,” gypsy problem, homosexual problem, handicap problem, Slavic problem, and any other “problems” that they dealt with by murdering about 20 million people (excludes deaths of soldiers in battle). Debbie Schlussel opposes gun control and links it to the German Jewish holocaust. I think it's a valid, and insufficiently commented upon, observation. Our founders sensibly linked gun rights to resitance to tyranny, even without the benefit of such examples as Hitler and Stalin.
I just saw Grand Torino and enjoyed it. But as Schussel noted, he insulted just about every ethnic group, but not the Muslims. I think he did give a good look at the Muslim woman (nurse?) at the Doctor's office.
We could also use a movie about Joseph Stalin's Ukrainian holocaust (5 to 10 million murdered). It could include Walter Duranty, head of the New York Times Moscow bureau, successfully denying the holocaust. The US press knew what was going on and rewarded Duranty and the Times with a Pulitzer prize.
I would also like to see a movie covering the time between our troops (except for embassy staff) departing Vietnam, and the fall of Vietnam, some two years later. It could show the post-Watergate Congress reneging on all obligations to South Vietnam, the communists preparing to resume the war, and the ultimate collapse. It may not be too late to do this again - in Iraq.
Books that would make excellent movies (but won't) include Witness by Whittaker Chambers, and State of Fear my Michael Crichton.
Political correctness reigns in Hollywood.
I just finished re-reading Whittaker Chamber’s book, Witness. Wow! Now that would make a fascinating movie! Perhaps the most significant book ever written regarding the struggle of good versus evil from a man who came over to the light from the side of darkness and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Thank you for posting this review. I will get back to you later.
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