KEY POINTS:
Defiance is not your typical Holocaust movie. It delivers a non-traditional view of the Jewish victims of World War II with its story of how the Russian/Polish Bielski brothers fought the Nazis as resistance fighters while hiding out in the forests of Belarus.
Although there has been some awareness of uprisings in the ghettos, this is a story not often told and a stark example of eastern European Jews who refused to go passively.
Ultimately, the Bielskis save 1200 Jews from extermination - and their survival is the ultimate act of defiance.
The movie begins in 1941 and the brothers flee to the forest, vowing to avenge the crimes against their slain parents.
While its focus is on Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, (Jamie Bell plays the youngest sibling), and although they are undoubtedly heroic, they are not the Hollywood prototype. Schreiber's hotheaded Zus Bielski, is a militant soldier who has no hesitation in administering violence - be it appropriate or not, and Craig's more sensitive Tuvia Bielski is put upon on a daily basis to make morally nebulous and sometimes reprehensible decisions.
Coming off his role as 007, this is quite a departure for Craig. "Yes, but it wasn't like, I thought, 'I've got Bond now so I should do this.' Actually, this period speaks to me very strongly because I've grown up with people in my family who fought in WWII. But it wasn't a conscious decision. It was simply that the story came, I hadn't heard it before, and it needs telling."
Defiance was co-written and directed by war movie veteran Ed Zwick, the son of a Holocaust survivor.
Says Zwick, "Defiance didn't only mean revenge. It meant the celebration of life and the refusal to have that taken away from them. Even under those conditions, they still had love, humour, sexuality, brotherhood. That was important to show."
The siblings had a tumultuous relationship and their approach to their dire situation was very different. Says Craig, "They fight against each other. Liev is very much about vengeance rather than the heroism of becoming a partisan. My character wants to live and form a community. He wants to try to stop fighting and killing. The balance is interesting and I think is a reflection on society. You need a bit of both."
Both Schreiber and Craig agree this was one of the toughest shoots either of them had ever endured. It was shot primarily in Lithuania for an estimated budget of US$50 million. "It got quite claustrophobic shooting in the forest, which goes on for a thousand miles stretching over Northern Europe. You'd walk a hundred yards in any direction and suddenly you couldn't see the film set. It felt closed in and strange which made it good for filming," says Craig.
Schreiber, of Ukranian and Russian descent, says, "I'm half Jewish. I've always been obsessed with my culture history, my heritage, probably because my family are Eastern Europeans and I know less than most people about it because they don't talk about it," he says.
"And I found once I started to research the Holocaust, that was something across the board. The real survivors, the ones who had been in the shit, don't want to tell you their story. That's why this material was tricky for me. There's a point at which it can become exploitative and I have a great anxiety and fear about that," he says. "Partly because they don't want their story told and partly because it's being used as a commercial venture."
Schreiber is raising his two sons Alexander Peter, 18 months, and Samuel Kai, who was born in December with girlfriend Naomi Watts. He says, "It's important to educate my kids about my heritage, but in a way, I don't know if the Holocaust holds a more important place to me than Shakespeare does. I want my kids to know about that as much as I want them to know that my parents came from Ukraine."
Schreiber, regarded as a serious "actor's actor" will next star in Wolverine which seems an unusual choice. He smiles. "Not at all. I think you underestimate the teenage boy in me. Acting is just thinly veiled cowboys and Indians. And in that vein, it doesn't get any better than playing a mutant."
Lowdown
What: Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber
When & where: Opens at cinemas April 23
