User Reviews

"Ashes and Diamonds", the final segment of Andrzej Wajda's celebrated war trilogy("A Generation" and "Kanal" preceded it) explores the effects of world war II on Poland's disillusioned youth. Wajda's unglorified vision of warfare and it's bitter aftermath, is informed with moral and historical ambiguity, leaving the viewer with several independent decisions to make.

After a first viewing, "Ashes and Diamonds" is a story of violence and love, skillfully-plotted and compulsively told; a typical suspense thriller with it's perilous assignments and stylish black and white cinematography suggesting noir. On another level, the film contains elements of high tragedy.

"Ashes and Diamonds"(The title is taken from a poem by Norwid) posits that the wrong done to a generation of youngsters, who died in a suspect cause, was deplorable. Wajda's frames are filled with bold and exciting images that infuse his work with an an admirable visual intensity. The filmmaker's penchant for hyperbole and symbolism; for the ornate and the spectacular, led to a persistent charge of 'baroquenesss'. It is my observation however, that the consistant visuals and atmospheric richness of his cinema, blend congrously with his thematic concerns. "Ashes and Diamonds" is an explosive evocation of post-war chaos. In it's compassionate attitude towards the individual, the community, and the nation; with it's committment to historical and social relevance, and in it's eloquent approach to human destiny, "Ashes and Diamonds" remains one of the most significant and provocative films ever to come out of Eastern Europe. Kurt Note: The plot of this review was willfully excised so as not to get anywhere near a 'spoiler' tag.

When Germany surrendered in WWII on May 8, 1945 there was much celebration in the West, but the mood in Poland was not altogether jubilant - the Nazis had been defeated but the Soviet occupation was settling in for a long stay. The complexity of the political situation is reflected in this film but, short of having been there or studied the history, an encompassing understanding of the chaotic situation must remain incomplete I think. However, this film is a great example of how focusing on the lives of a few characters in a single twenty-four hour period can illuminate significant historical facts in the context of an intriguing story.

The characters are representative of the factions existing in Poland on the day of the German surrender. You have: Maciek, a resistance fighter who had opposed the Germans and was continuing the struggle against the communists; Szczuka, a Pole who embraced the communists and had become a party official; Drewnowski, whose sympathies were with the resistance, but who hedged his bets by playing on both sides; people sucking up to the new power structure for purely personal gain; and most folks, who were just trying to get by.

Moral ambiguities abound, raising issues with no easy answers. In an attempt to kill Szczuka Maciek mistakenly kills two innocent workers returning from a day of work at a local cement plant. Is continued resistance worth the sacrifice of innocent Polish lives? Maciek is conflicted about this and when Maciek's superior officer asks his superior if it is really necessary to kill Szczuka, he gets a resounding "Yes," followed by the question, "Is this the Poland you fought for?" Ordinary citizens bemoan the fact that any killing of Poles by Poles is wrong, but the very existence of the resistance shows that there is no universal agreement on that. Though Szczuka may be on the wrong side, he is not played as a villain and in fact he seems sincere in his convictions. You believe there is no evil intent when he says, "The end of the War isn't the end of our fight. The fight for Poland and what kind of country it is to become has just begun." Having met and become infatuated with the beautiful Krystyna, Maciek is torn between giving up on the resistance and pursuing personal goals. But his superior officer's implication that to do so would be traitorous to the cause resonates with him and, when he has an opportunity to kill Szczuka, he casts his lot with the cause he has fought for - a cause he knows is probably doomed, and will doom him. Better to die for a doomed cause you believe in than live a lie? Or, is it better to work within the system in trying to achieve heretical ideals?

Zbigniew Cybulski is a quirky but charismatic actor. His unexpected facial expressions and body movements create a unique, memorable character. All the actors are good, and the melancholy score is perfect for the mood of the film - it is reminiscent of some of the more plaintive works of Nina Rota.

A most impressive aspect of this film is the black and white cinematography. Every scene is artistically composed and there are many scenes that achieve a stunning effect, such as the one between Maciek and Krystyna in the ruined church with a life-sized crucifix hanging upside down and swaying to the sound of an eerie squeak, perhaps suggesting that the church had been turned on its head, or otherwise marginalized. The initial scenes also suggest the impotence of religion during this difficult time. When one of the innocent workers tries to escape Maciek's shots, he seeks refuge in a church, but the door is locked. After the door jam has been blown off the worker falls through the doorway, revealing a mangled crucifix inside.

This film encourages one to do a little study of Polish history. Poland lost over five million civilians in the war, about three million of them Jews. This out of a population of thirty-five million. Poland also lost over 400,000 military personnel fighting for the allies, about the same number that the United States lost. Total U.S. casualties during the war accounted for about a third of one per cent of the total population, compared with a 16% loss of the Polish population. And, in the end, what Poland got for its sacrifice was a fifty year period of Soviet occupation. The segment of Norwid's poem that Maciek recites, "Will only ashes remain, and chaos, whirling into the void, or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlight diamond?" is particularly poignant in view of what happened.

This film is in a league with the best black and white films of Bergman and Fellini.

The third in Director Andrej Wadja's war trilogy, Ashes and Diamonds is set in Poland on the last day of WW2. The German High Command have issued their unconditional surrender and the Communists quickly fill the vacuum left by Hitler's goose-steppers and set up shop. Warsaw is lousy with rats and not all of them are of the rodent variety as power hungry bureaucrats jostle for position in the new order.

Having spent the last half a decade under the Nazi junta; the prospect of a future under Stalin's jackboot is met with keen opposition. Maciek, a resistance fighter, is ordered to kill a local Socialist party official, which he is more than happy to do, but soon discovers he has killed two innocent civilians instead.

Maciek books a room at a rundown hotel where his quarry is staying. While he waits for the right moment to make amends he meets and falls in love with the barmaid Krystyna. His connection to the girl leads him to rethink his part in the endless cycle of violence.

The central role of Maciek was played by the brilliant Zybigniew Cybulski who came to be known as the 'Polish James Dean.' Dean's death in a highway smash in 1955 meant he would never fulfil his promise and so would forever be frozen in movie goer's minds as a deeply troubled boy. Cybulski was 30 when he played the role that made him and gives us a glimpse of what his western counterpart could have achieved. Cybulski's Maciek is a worldly wise, vodka fuelled skirt chaser, (not a million miles away from his real life persona allegedly) and far from being made twisted and bitter by his war experiences, Cybulski plays the character as a man who laughs at the cruel joke of life that his been played on all of us and is determined to "have fun and not be swindled" even in the face of imminent annihilation.

It was a conscious decision on Wadja and Cybulski's part that despite their story taking place in 1945, ASHES AND DIAMONDS' central character was going to be 'all out' 50's cool. Parts Brando, Dean and Clift – Maciek, in his army fatigues and 'sun-glasses after dark' became a symbol for Polish teenagers who would emulate his style for years to come; and his Anna Karenna-esquire death beneath the wheels of a late night train in 1967 only exacerbated his legendary status. Even now we see shades of him in any number of Hong Kong 'glock operas' and John Cusack's 'assassin in Raybans' from Grosse Point Blank is a clearly a direct ancestor.

Often charged with being overloaded with symbolism as scenes are obscured by upside down crucifixes; characters rendered almost invisible in morning light whilst unfurling flags or inexplicably joined by white horses as they ponder the possibilities of a brighter future, ASHES AND DIAMONDS makes no secret of its Expressionist credentials. The youthful hero dying on a mountainous rubbish dump to the accompaniment of screeching crows is an image lifted almost directly from Van Gogh's apocalyptic 'Crows over Wheatfield's'.

Two years after Cybulski met his destiny on the snowy platform of Wroclaw station Wadja made EVERYTHING FOR SALE about an actor missing from the set of a film. The missing actor was clearly meant to be Cybulski who even in death dominated every scene. It still stands as probably the best film an actor never made.

During WWII, two ideologically-opposed factions, the London-directed Home Army and the pro-Soviet People's Army, joined forces to defeat a common enemy, the Nazis. When the war came to an end in May 1945, however, so too did the groups' shaky alliance, and from momentary peace was suddenly sprung a whole new struggle for power. While a new Communist regime began to build its foundations in the shell-shocked Polish cities, the remaining Home Army rebels took to the forests, where they dutifully continued their liberation campaign using guerrilla tactics. If WWII itself is considered necessary – or, if not necessary, then at least justified given the Nazi menace – then this post-War skirmish is the ultimate waste of life, prompting murder on the grounds of mere ideology. In Andrzej Wajda's 'Ashes and Diamonds (1958),' a weary Home Army youth, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), faces an internal conflict between fighting political causes and living a normal life, not coincidentally the same dilemma facing the nation of Poland as the War came to a close.

Wajda's film opens with an cold-blooded ambush, in which two concrete factory workers are needlessly gunned down in a case of mistaken identity. These shootings take place at the front steps of a country chapel, and with a child within earshot, highlighting the heartless resolve with which the Home Army rebels carry out their murders. However, despite the pro-Communist climate in which Wajda produced his film, he stops well short of demonising the "enemy" rebels, and, indeed, young Maciek is portrayed as the tragic victim of the story. In fact, the film goes to some length to emphasise the parallels between Maciek and Communist leader Szczuka (Waclaw Zastrzezynski), implying the needlessness of their conflict, and so the tragedy of their fatal opposition: both men fought valiantly against fascist dictatorships (the former in both Spain and Poland), and remember fondly the war comrades who died in pursuit of an ideal that, to both, should now be deemed realised. Instead, Szczuka dies in Maciek's arms as Poland celebrates its liberation.

Polish cinema reached its peak in the late 1950s, following the Khrushchev Thaw that saw an ease in Soviet censorship, and Andrzej Wajda was at the forefront of this cinematic New Wave. Jerzy Wójcik's stark black-and-white cinematography is elaborate and beautifully-executed, capturing the main character's claustrophobic isolation using closed sets and a cramped frame. The war itself took many prisoners, but Maciek – ironically a "freedom fighter" – finds his freedom restrained in a less overt manner. Even with the liberation of Poland, Maciek is obligated to continue his blood feud, denied the ordinary happiness offered by a life with pretty bar-maid Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska), with whom he spends a night. Cybulski's character squanders most of the film in boisterous, overcrowded surroundings, finding room to move only in fractured moments, such as a late-night stroll through the crumbling town ruins. Even in his death throes, Maciek stumbles through a cluttered wasteland of garbage, ultimately joining the detritus of the twentieth century's most costly conflict.

A masterpiece for all time. One of those films that one can not watch, which simply can not. Its like any genuine work of art can be seen at different levels: here - and the gunman, and the detective and love story, and the human drama, amounting to tragedy, and this is the existential drama and thinking about the national character, the fate of Poland - all for striking deeper level translation. It is unique in the film work of the operator, as built by frame, as planned, each episode. The game actors, so can we call this game??? Tsibulsky does not play, he just lives in this film! Some episodes ever sink into the mind: machine turn, opens the door to the church, a hapless, drop dead right at the altar ( "Lord Jesus" delivers one of the killers, in my opinion, Drevnovsky), a scene where she sings "Red poppies Monte -Cassini, but Machek and Anzhey Remembers his comrades, burning glasses with vodka, and Christine Machek, reciting poems on the tomb in the tumbledown church, killing Pikes when Helmitsky compresses old man killed in the arms and after shots Graham celebratory fireworks, white sheets, which is the blood Macheka, displaying the colors of the flag when it falls on the scrap-heap agonizing under the sounds of Oginski's polonez, which carries away its Cristina another man ... Sorry, that so much and confused, but on the other, I talk about this film can not, so much he means to me. If you still doubt - to watch or not - brush them: no see, not paying attention to the year of issue, so show your friends. Because it's a REAL MOVIE, but that is now in theaters, that spinning on the box that receives the Oscar - Household soap and odnodnevka (film that you'll forget right after watching it). But this - movies with a capital letter.

I first discovered the enormity of the atrocities perpetrated by the Soviets in Poland through the non-fiction book The Captive Mind, by Polish author Czeslaw Milosz. One of the things that stuck with me was that the Polish resistance members who fought the Nazis were not seen as heroes by the Soviets, because those Poles were defending the old bourgeois order. So the old militaries and intelligentsia had to be killed to pave the way for a new state that upheld the values of the revolution.

Andrzej Wajda captures this situation in Ashes and Diamonds, adapting a novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, coincidentally one of the intellectuals Milosz devotes a chapter to and who served the revolution with a lot of faith and ardour. Still, this is not a propaganda movie; Wadja somehow managed to trick the censors into not seeing criticism against the way the Soviet Union betrayed the people who believe in its ideals.

Actor Zbigniew Cybulski plays Maciek Chelmicki, a killer working for the communists, who receives orders to kill Szczuka, a Communist leader. Although Maciek always found killing easy in the past, now he has to kill a former soldier and one of the many who believes in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, after falling in love with a barmaid, he realises that his life is a cycle of violence and that he wants to put an end to it. What follows is a night of self-discovery for the young killer.

Although I wanted to like this movie more, a disjointed and often confusing narrative construction threw me off at several points. Cybulski is perfect as the killer, though, initially relaxed and thorough, then as the night progresses he becomes introspective and melancholic. I also loved the cinematography, especially the games between light and shadow. My favourite sequence was the murder of Szczuka. As he falls in Maciek's arms fireworks ignite in the sky celebrating the end of war; Maciek runs away leaving the body by a puddle, the fireworks reflecting in the water. His personal crisis and the celebration of an entire country come together and we know the future won't bode well for either.

In free countries like Italy and France cinema revered communism. Movies like Novecento sound awfully dated nowadays. In countries where communism existed under no guises, their movies have remained timeless. This is not just a condemnation of one of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes that ever existed, but a depiction of human nature wherever ideals overthrow respect for life and dignity. Fifty-one years later, Ashes and Diamonds remains modern.

The third in Director Andrej Wadja's war trilogy, Ashes and Diamonds is set in Poland on the last day of WW2. The German High Command have issued their unconditional surrender and the Communists quickly fill the vacuum left by Hitler's goose-steppers and set up shop. Warsaw is lousy with rats and not all of them are of the rodent variety as power hungry bureaucrats jostle for position in the new order.

Having spent the last half a decade under the Nazi junta; the prospect of a future under Stalin's jackboot is met with keen opposition. Maciek, a resistance fighter, is ordered to kill a local Socialist party official, which he is more than happy to do, but soon discovers he has killed two innocent civilians instead.

Maciek books a room at a rundown hotel where his quarry is staying. While he waits for the right moment to make amends he meets and falls in love with the barmaid Krystyna. His connection to the girl leads him to rethink his part in the endless cycle of violence.

The central role of Maciek was played by the brilliant Zybigniew Cybulski who came to be known as the 'Polish James Dean.' Dean's death in a highway smash in 1955 meant he would never fulfil his promise and so would forever be frozen in movie goer's minds as a deeply troubled boy. Cybulski was 30 when he played the role that made him and gives us a glimpse of what his western counterpart could have achieved. Cybulski's Maciek is a worldly wise, vodka fuelled skirt chaser, (not a million miles away from his real life persona allegedly) and far from being made twisted and bitter by his war experiences, Cybulski plays the character as a man who laughs at the cruel joke of life that his been played on all of us and is determined to "have fun and not be swindled" even in the face of imminent annihilation.

It was a conscious decision on Wadja and Cybulski's part that despite their story taking place in 1945, ASHES AND DIAMONDS' central character was going to be 'all out' 50's cool. Parts Brando, Dean and Clift – Maciek, in his army fatigues and 'sun-glasses after dark' became a symbol for Polish teenagers who would emulate his style for years to come; and his Anna Karenna-esquire death beneath the wheels of a late night train in 1967 only exacerbated his legendary status. Even now we see shades of him in any number of Hong Kong 'glock operas' and John Cusack's 'assassin in Raybans' from Grosse Point Blank is a clearly a direct ancestor.

Often charged with being overloaded with symbolism as scenes are obscured by upside down crucifixes; characters rendered almost invisible in morning light whilst unfurling flags or inexplicably joined by white horses as they ponder the possibilities of a brighter future, ASHES AND DIAMONDS makes no secret of its Expressionist credentials. The youthful hero dying on a mountainous rubbish dump to the accompaniment of screeching crows is an image lifted almost directly from Van Gogh's apocalyptic 'Crows over Wheatfield's'.

Two years after Cybulski met his destiny on the snowy platform of Wroclaw station Wadja made EVERYTHING FOR SALE about an actor missing from the set of a film. The missing actor was clearly meant to be Cybulski who even in death dominated every scene. It still stands as probably the best film an actor never made.

If Marty Scorsese tells you that 'Ashes and Diamonds' is one of his favorite movies, it's likely that many will accept his viewpoint without a critical eye (that is the power of the influential American auteur, Mr. Scorsese). Of course it's easy to understand why Scorsese is enamored with the film, mainly due to the 'Citizen Kane-like' cinematography and all those brilliant little 'cinematic' moments (such as the film's iconic ending where anti-hero Maciek is shot and ends up in the fetal position, on a trash heap). But despite the cinematic style that Mr. Scorsese so adores, one cannot ignore the reality of the time in which the film was made and the compromises director Andrzej Wajda was forced to make.

Ashes and Diamonds was released in 1958 and the English translation version in 1962. Poland of course was under the thumb of the Soviets and to give director Wadja the benefit of the doubt, he was in no position to make a film that was critical of the Communists who were ruling Poland at the time. Thus, Szczuka, the Commissar who returns to Poland on VE day (May 8, 1945) and who is the subject of an assassination attempt by Home Army operatives at the beginning of the film, must be depicted as a wholly sympathetic figure who has the best interests of the Polish people at heart. Szczuka is also a tragic figure, who, at the moment he's on his way to re-connect with his son (a captured Home Army sympathizer who was raised by an anti-Communist aunt), is unmercifully cut down by Maciek.

What's missing here in this film is political context. Sure there may have been well-meaning 'patriots' such as Szczuka amongst the Communists but what about the dark side of Communist rule? The Polish Home Army was the largest resistance group against the Nazis during World War II. The group was officially disbanded even before the end of the war in January 1945. A deal was made for thousands of former Home Army soldiers to receive 'amnesty' by the Soviets, but instead, after they accepted the amnesty deal, they were rounded up and sent to Soviet gulags, many never to be seen or heard from again. None of this important information, makes its way into the film.

Instead, Wadja, introduces a stock villain in the form of 'The Major' who was responsible for ordering the assassination of Szczuka, but instead finds himself responsible for the murder of two innocent factory workers. Both assassins, Maciek and Andrzej, appear to be trapped (in Wadja's view) by bad karma. Andrzej asks the Major whether it's really necessary to kill Szuzuka, but the Major won't entertain his question. And of course, Maciek, the brooding loner (modeled on James Dean), falls in love with a bar girl, but ultimately can't run away, and goes through with the murder of the kindly apparatchik.

Most of the plot revolves around a banquet given for the local mayor in a hotel. While this is happening, the plot to kill Szczuka slowly materializes as the backgrounds of each of the prinicipals is introduced. While the sub-plot involving Szczuka's son is somewhat interesting, Wadja (due to the constrictions of the time) is not permitted a Szczuka counterpart—one who shows the dark side of Soviet influence. As previously mentioned, the Major is too Machiavellian, without showing any of the other side's good points. And despite their 'sensitivity', Maciek and Andrzej, end up as ruthless as their commanding officer.

Perhaps Wadja's most interesting character is Drewnowski, the informant who loses his job in the mayor's office after becoming completely intoxicated. Drenowski perhaps represents the 'common man', tragically caught between the two warring factions in Polish society at the time, and unable to cope.

Ashes and Diamonds may have represented some kind of breakthrough for Polish cinema at the time it was released. Here, opponents of the ruling Communist government, are treated with some sympathy, as victims of some kind of inevitable and hence, tragic karmic law. Nonetheless, Wadja must ultimately throw the opponents of the ruling regime, under the proverbial bus. A more nuanced and clearer picture of these opponents, would ultimately appear, following the fall of Communism. Scorcese is right in heaping accolades over Ashes and Diamond's style; but its 'substance' is decidedly dated: stuck in a time, when people had to continually self-censor thoughts and words which they wished to say.