Accent on Accents

Since I am a sucker for well told Holocaust stories and Daniel Craig (really, the two should not be put together, as it is wrong to get all teary eyed and drool at the same time), I am looking forward to its late December release date. I watched the trailer for Defiance, a movie based on a true story about three Jewish brothers who relocated a Jewish community to the forests of Belarus to escape (and fight) the Nazis. The trailer reminded me of something that I've been wondering about for years.

Why, in movies like this, do characters speak English with Eastern European accents? I understand that this is a device of sorts to remind the viewer where the story is set, but we know that we are watching a movie set in Eastern Europe, and that the people there didn't speak English in the first place. It doesn't make it more historically accurate to have non-English speaking characters use heavy accents, nor does it help place the audience. I always feel weirdly manipulated by this technique because it is so distracting. If it were set in post-War America or some other English speaking place, then it makes sense to use the English with Eastern European accents. Otherwise, just speak English or use whatever the native language is and subtitle the film.

Am I being too harsh? Also, is it uncharitable to add that the real life Tuvia Bielski looked nothing like Daniel Craig? (Not that Mr. Bielski was unattractive, but he was not a blond haired, blue eyed god. I guess they do this when casting women in films all the time, so I'm not exactly complaining, but I think it is a little odd.) Perhaps I am more curmudgeonly than usual because I am sad that Mara left this afternoon and Husband is out of town until Thursday...