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Defiance was a painful movie to watch. This is because they did a beautiful job of capturing the hard decisions people have to make in a war. it was stunning in all senses of the word. The uniformly high quality of the performances goes without saying. The characters were well acted and beautiful, the group dynamics spot on. They made the unusual decision to treat the three adult brothers all as main characters with personal development arcs instead of making it all about Daniel Craig. When I saw the youngest brother, I was expecting smarminess and yet another Hollywood movie style dead weight to be defended while he did stupid things. Instead, he went about being quietly competent in the background. I think this is an example of the understated way the character development went. They were very show, not tell. They didn't bother to state what we could easily guess from actions. Similarly, by evil little military history buff heart was pleased by the tactics. It wasn't simplistic about choices when in the real world there is grey. The costumes and set design were excellent, though it was the blocking and cinematography that was really mind blowing. There were a few shots that were almost too well composed, but honestly, this film was so well shot I was hard put to think of anything recent in it's league.

Go see it to encourage them to make more.