Defiance - War movie

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Defiance is a 2008 American war film directed by Edward Zwick set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The screenplay by Clayton Frohman and Zwick was based on Nechama Tec's 1993 book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by Polish Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Belarus during the Second World War. The film stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, Liev Schreiber as Zus Bielski, Jamie Bell as Asael Bielski, and George MacKay as Aron Bielski.

Production began in early September 2007. After a limited release, e.g. Los Angeles, New York City, in the United States on December 31, 2008, it went into general release worldwide in January and February 2009.[2]

Plot
In August 1941, Nazi Germany's Einsatzgruppen are sweeping through Eastern Europe systematically killing European Jews. Among the survivors not killed or restricted to ghettoes are the Jewish Bielski brothers: Tuvia, Zus, Asael and Aron. Their parents are dead, killed by local Schutzmannschaft under orders from the German occupiers. The brothers flee to the Naliboki forest, vowing to avenge the deaths of their parents.

The brothers encounter other Jewish escapees hiding in the forest and take them under their protection and leadership. Tuvia kills the Schutzmannschaft chief responsible for his parents' deaths. Over the next year, they shelter a growing number of refugees, raiding local farms for food and supplies and moving their camp whenever they are discovered. The Bielski brothers stage raids on the Germans and their collaborators. Casualties cause Tuvia to reconsider this approach because of the risk to the hiding Jews. Rivalry between the two eldest brothers, Tuvia and Zus, fuels a disagreement between them about their future; as winter approaches, Zus decides to leave the camp and join a local company of Soviet partisans, while his older brother Tuvia remains with the camp as their leader. An arrangement is made between the two groups in which the Soviet partisans agree to protect the Jewish camp in exchange for supplies.

After a winter of sickness, starvation, attempted mutiny and constant hiding, the camp learns that the Germans are about to attack them in force. The Soviets refuse to help and they evacuate the camp as Luftwaffe Stukas bomb them. A delaying force stays behind, led by Asael, to slow down the German infantry. The defense does not last long; only Asael and a camp member named Sofiya survive to rejoin the rest of the group, who, at the edge of the forest, are confronted with a seemingly impassable marsh. They cross the marsh with only one casualty but are immediately attacked by a German platoon supported by a Panzer III tank. Just as all seems lost, the Germans are assaulted from the rear by a partisan force led by Zus, who has deserted the Soviets to rejoin the group.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that the survivors lived in the forest for another two years, building a hospital, a nursery, a school, growing to a total of 1,200 Jews. Original photographs of the participants are shown, including Tuvia in his uniform and their fates are described: Asael was conscripted into the Red Army and was killed in action, never getting to see the child he fathered; Tuvia, Zus and Aron survived the war and emigrated to the United States to form a trucking firm in New York City. The epilogue also states that the Bielski brothers never sought recognition for what they did and that the descendants of the people they saved now number in the tens of thousands.