Director (the Oscar winning) Edward Zwick who also co-wrote the screenplay has created a powerful and unflinching film telling a story that most would have found too daunting. He manages to capture the uncertainty and the suspense of what it must have been like living as a Jew at this time and in this place. Fear is palpable and the film avoids cliché and sentimentality. The acting is first – rate, we believe they are who they are supposed to be and thanks to the script they are fleshed out three dimensional characters who are utterly convincing in their very human arguments and behaviour.

The cinematography too captures the changing of the seasons well as autumn turns to winter and on to spring. The winter sequences are particularly effective, I was sat in a nice heated cinema but even I felt cold watching as the forest became covered in a blanket of snow!

The action sequences are fast and furious with shaky hand camera and steadicam making things have a real immediacy and desperation as the Bielski’s and their followers fight it out with the German army. We feel the cold, the hunger and the hardships. Quarrels naturally break out in camp and the film is not afraid to show the class divide between the Jews as accountants, rabbis and intellectuals join farmers in building shelters and repairing weapons. Everyone is involved, women fight alongside the men. It is powerful viewing.

This is a story that had to be told and at the end the viewer is left in no doubt at the enormity of their achievement under such harsh conditions. You will be gripped from beginning to end, riveted by the struggle for survival. Out of all the Second World War films that seem to be saturating our cinemas this year this one is a must see!

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