As a homeschooling family, a lot of our schoolwork follows somewhat of a non-scripted "unschooling" format. For those not familiar with the term, this is an approach to education that follows a child's natural interests or inquiries. Our children ask tons of questions about all manners of things, and these usually lead to deeper, more formal study. One of the cool things about this approach is that I get to learn a whole heap of stuff, also, along the way.
Another cool aspect is that we get cool books from the local library and rent good movies to explore those inquiries. The subject of the Holocaust recently came up, so we have been watching a number of movies with interesting stories on the general subject of internment during/after WWII.
I have posted about a couple already:
I AM DAVID (2003) and
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (2005) (this latter one directed by Liev Schrieber).
Another in this category we recently watched was
PAPER CLIPS (2004). This was a documentary about a middle school project to study the Holocaust. In class, a group of students asked the question regarding just how big a number 6 million Jews represents, so they set out to find out. Their means was to collect paper clips - one for each Jew killed in the camps. Their project (several years long) was a 'success' in that they collected far more than they needed. They purchased an authentic cattle car (used by the Nazi's to transport Jews to the camps) to turn it into a museum, and filled it with 11 million of the paper clips they collected - 6 million for the ones in the camps and 5 million for Russians.
It's a touching story, and the film is worth a look for documentary buffs.
Which brings me to
DEFIANCE (2008). While not really a documentary, this film was
based on actual events - events about which I was sadly ignorant and welcomed the opportunity to learn more. In short, group of Polish Jews flee to the woods to flee the Germans; this movie is about their lives escaping and encampments.
I mentioned Liev Schrieber above as the director of EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED since he co-starred (alongside Daniel Craig) in DEFIANCE. The acting performances were strong and Edward Zwick's direction showed restraint in refusing to stray too much into Hollywood-esque 'action' sequences. The war scenes were mostly believable without over-gross graphic visual effects. Sure, some realism was sacrificed (odd for an R rating) in the tameness, but I appreciated the focus of story and character without reversion to visual "eye candy."
I am left wondering why the R rating anyway. I've seen PG-13 movies with more language, nudity (this movie had NONE) and similar depictions of violence.
I also liked that this movie made an attempt to portray "good people do bad things in screwed up circumstances." The "heroes" get their black eyes in this one, and it rings true. Sometimes, there are shades of grey, and the will to survive muddies the colors.
In the end, I give this one 4-4.5 out of 5. I really enjoyed it, thought it did a good job telling a difficult story and passed it's longish running time of 137 minutes quickly enough.
Now, to go read more on the Bielski Partisans and partisan warfare in WWII in general...
