User Reviews

A well done picture speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves and would be gladly considered never existing by some.

Although it's difficult to credibly and adequately convey the horror of such a murder which became a life tragedy for many Polish families and undoubtedly affected the way Poland looked after the war I think the director made a good job. Especially so, that it happened to be his personal tragedy as well.

Despite that the movie is well-balanced with emotions and atmosphere. Modest colors and anxious music by Penderecki emphasize the horror of those who were waiting. Short cuts of brutal scenes of murder leave speechless. No additional comment is needed.

Everyone in Poland has heard of the Katyn massacre but I've been surprised and saddened at how few people in Britain know of the atrocity. In the early part of the Second World War, more than 4,000 Polish soldiers were executed in the Katyn forest near Smolensk in western Russia. This was part of an organised effort to eradicate the military, political and intellectual leadership of Poland and a series of executions in various other locations removed some 22,000 Poles from their loved ones and their nation.

So, who did this? The Germans claimed to have uncovered the bodies in 1943 and blamed the Soviets in an effort to embarrass and divide the Allies. The Soviet Union categorically denied the crime at the time and for decades afterwards, only in 1990 admitting what the Poles and any independent assessor of the evidence knew: Stalin's NKVD perpetrated the horror on his express command.

The incident has now been made into a major Polish film by the acclaimed Polish director Andrzej Wajda whose own father was killed at Katyn and who is now in his 80s. The work was premiered at the Berlin film festival in 2007; it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2008; and it finally arrived in Britain in a few cinemas in the summer of 2009. It is an exceptional work - both powerful and moving - that deserves a much larger audience.

Starting in 1939 with the simultaneous invasion of Poland by the Nazis and the Soviets, it takes us in several jumps to the immediate post-war period and underlines that the shame of Katyn was not just the deaths of the 22,000 in 1940 but the denial of the truth by so many people for so many years afterwards. Through the device of a prolonged flashback, the film concludes with a return to Katyn with close-up scenes of the sheer brutality of what was unquestionably a war crime.

The film is based on a novel by Andrzej Mularczyk and revolves around a number of fictional families with a fair bit of location work in Krakow, a city centre that looks today much like it did in the 1940s and which I have visited. The photography and acting are both excellent and selective use of wartime film footage simply adds to the sense of verisimilitude.

Footnote: To my utter astonishment, at the Renoir cinema in central London where I saw the film, as I descended the stairs to the screen, I was given a leaflet by a representation of something called The Stalin Society which insisted that the massacre was carried out by the Germans in 1943 and that Wajda's film is simply part of a sustained attempt to discredit communism at a time of economic crisis when so many people would see it as the obvious alternative to capitalism.

I watched "Katyn" on a home computer screen. Even in that limited format, "Katyn" had an impact on me comparable to such cinematic greats as "Lawrence of Arabia." I cried throughout most of the film. I resolved that many of my relationships would be different. I remembered people I had known who reminded me of characters in the movie. After the film ended, I felt that I could not listen to the radio or read the newspaper or listen to anyone speak. I just needed to allow the film to sink into me.

Naysayers have critiqued "Katyn" as boring and dull. If you need a film to depict war, occupation, and atrocity as shiny, compact, and compelling as a sports car, then you should listen to those naysayers; don't watch "Katyn," rather, watch the very silly, teen fanboy-friendly Quentin Tarantino flic, "Inglorious Bastards." If you've seen enough Hollywood productions jam-packed with sexy Nazis and happy endings, and you want to take in a film that dares to depict, in eyeblinks, what war, atrocity, and occupation looked like and felt like to real people, then by all means see "Katyn." One of the many features that I admired: "Katyn"'s Nazis are not sexy. They are not Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Christoph Waltz. "Katyn"'s Nazis are brutal, repugnant thugs.

I respect this movie. There are too few movies about which I'd say that. It shows the courage not to attempt to weave an uplifting, feel-good atrocity narrative that leaves the viewer with a smile. This isn't "Schindler's List." "Schindler's List" is a very good movie, but this isn't that. It is, rather, very much like what World War Two and the subsequent Soviet occupation sounded like to me when I listened to my own older friends and relatives, who lived through both. This is disjointed narrative, stories that seem headed for redemption or even ecstasy but that end in random death, that end in aborted normalcy, aborted joy, aborted meaning. I felt, in watching these cold, pale, stoic characters, as if I were, once again, sitting across the table from older Eastern European friends and relatives. Yes, that's what they looked like. Yes, those are the facial expressions they assumed when they talked about the uncle who was rounded up and never heard from again, the daring, handsome lad who ended up in a mass grave – or when they pointedly did *not* talk about these people. The gravestone whose inscription dares to tell the truth; the tearing down of a propaganda poster; the Red Army soldier who struggles to do the right thing by a widow, who won't yet admit that she is a widow; the singing of exactly the right Christmas carol at exactly the right moment: those are exactly the heroic gestures that no one ever saw, that went unrecorded, that only one person lived to tell about, to tell me. Here they are, on screen.

When a movie is named "Katyn" the viewer knows how it will end; it's kind of like a movie named "Auschwitz" or "Kolyma" or "Wounded Knee." There isn't going to be a surprise ending. I was still surprised by the ending, by how courageous and moving I found it. Once again, Andrzej Wajda managed to wow the film-goer in me. And he managed to move the human in me.

See "Katyn." See a movie you can respect, a movie that is worth your time.

Katyn by Andrzej Wajda

A courageous film by a director who makes no concessions. Austerity instead of high-tech. What cineast of hallucinatory action, of nude and crude sensuality, of sequences full of monumental catastrophes would make a film in which one had scenes in a slower rhythm, without sex, with shadowy photography, with quiet music and giving ethical principles priority over the characters and their lives.

One more reason, however, for us to thank Hollywood for nominating this film to run for the Oscar for the best foreign film.

The Katyn massacre, perpetrated on Stalin's orders to eliminate the fine flower of the Polish intelligentsia, was left out of official Soviet history until the glasnost of Gorbatchov. There, in the Katyn forest and in other places as well, thousands of Polish officers were massacred. The Soviets tried to attribute it to the Nazis, but the truth eventually came to light. There is still, however, in Russia today, an attempt to deny the historical truth.

I would like to make my own the reading of the film which focuses on this question of the distortion of historical fact by the apparatus of the state. The official lie imposed by the Soviet occupation of Poland brought torment to the lives of many of the families of the victims. Wajda's denunciation, along with the cry "Never kill again!" can also serve as an alert for our present world, in which so often a virtual reality becomes a substitute for the truth.

The first group of interpretations belong to the women (wives, mothers, daughters) of the dead officers: how they coped, first with the hope of their return, and then with the definitive notice of their loss. They are marvellous interpretations, revealing the director's mastery and the talent of the actors. The portrayals demonstrate how, even when nothing else is left, there is still dignity. The wife of the dead General in Katyn refuses to endorse a declaration, prepared by the Nazis, denouncing the Soviets. The truth was known – why, then, should she play Hitler's propaganda game? He was just as much the enemy as Stalin was. Another woman wants to honour the memory of her brother by putting on the family tomb a stone with his name on it. Courageously she challenges the regime, but in vain - the stone is destroyed because on it the date of the officer's death indicates clearly who is to blame.

Most of the male characters were simply victims of massacre; among those who had the opportunity of showing themselves authentically noble was a Russian officer who tried to save his Polish neighbour and her daughter. "I couldn't save my own family but I can help yours." And it is a Polish officer who has changed sides who represents, in the middle of so much heroism, the weakness of some. "It is necessary to survive," he declared.

An entire population was suffocated by the Nazi and Soviet occupation. It is a shock to be shown in the film the cordial relations between the officials of the occupying powers, which would have been inconceivable in earlier years. Poland is partitioned (yet again!) by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In the Poland occupied by the Nazis all the professors of a university are summoned and arrested there and then (as a means of impeding the formation of future opposition). In the Poland occupied by the Soviets, the Polish officers are made prisoners of war (an efficient means of stopping them fighting for the independence of their country).

Pawel Edelman's photography is simply a work of genius, a mixture of sombre realism and the surreal. The music of Krzystof Penderecki fits the narrative like a glove, producing just the right atmosphere at the right time. The dry narrative style has something in common with a documentary and calls to mind another of his films, Love in Germany. And there is no lack of the symbolism present in all his films, this time with a remarkably religious tone.

In the development of the story there are moments taken from the films of that period – as, for example, the powerful exhumation of the dead, scenes which served Soviets and Nazis alike in placing the blame on each other.

For me the strongest images are those of the young man who refused to declare that his father had not been killed in Katyn by the Soviets; of the two waves of fugitives running in opposite directions and meeting in the middle of a bridge – which way to run? of the general who tried to animate his men in the last Christmas of their lives and of the little girl awaiting the return of her father. This last touched me in a special way, because I too had waited for my father's return at the end of the war.

Katyn is, without doubt, one of Andrzej Wajda's greatest films.

Tomasz Lychowski Rio de Janeiro, Brazil February, 2008.

Translated into English by Graham Connell

Are there words to express suffering, injustice, hypocrisy of war? May empathy ease the pain of those who lost hope for a better world?

There are many movies on WWII that appear to be more or less captivating, touching as well as educational. And, in this respect, we could easily rate this movie in that way if we treat KATYN as yet another film on WWII. However, the case here is different, more to say exceptionally unique.

Andrzej Wajda, after 18 years since the downfall of communist regime, fulfills the duty he feels to his parents and all Polish Patriots and makes a film on the theme that, not long ago, was not only forbidden to discuss in theater or cinema, but in all public places, the Truth that was prohibited and highly unwelcome, the Truth about the slaughter of more than 20,000 Polish best officers committed by Soviet communists in the forests of Katyn. Andrzej Wajda based his film on Andrzej Mularczyk's story POST MORTEM and consulted great Katyn witnesses, including recently deceased Priest Zdzislaw Peszkowski (1918-2007). If the film is good or weak belongs to the opinions of particular viewers. But lots of people on the premiere day stated that it's a historic work. Why?

KATYN, though a movie, is a wonderful documentary that supplies the viewer with TRUTHFUL information on what really happened in 1940, why it happened and who did this (facts that were most distorted in many historical books and many other sources for years). Here, the truth is more important than anything else. The movie contains archive footage, pictures and terrific narrator. These moments are well balanced and, though appearing several times, do not disturb anything but make for all the rest. And what is the rest?

The rest contains particularly vivid plots of families, their dreams, their fear, husbands/sons' honor, wives' love and care, and foremost young officers' martyrdom. The story of Andrzej (Artur Zmijewski) is exceptionally moving. His situation seems to represent the Poland of that time: torn between two oppressors, two worlds: Nazi Germany who attacked it on September, the 1st, 1939 and communist Russia who attacked it from the east 17 days later. As a victim of Katyn massacre, Andrzej appears to tell us a tragic story of separation, extreme suffering, but hope, to the very last day, the hope for survival. His notebook seems to tell us: "No, I will live, they're taking us somewhere but I'll surely see my beloved woman, my loving mum and my sweet daughter." The tragic though full of hope Christmas Eve also depicts that attitude. Other characters, including Jerzy (Andrzej Chyra), Andrzej's wife Anna (Maja Ostaszewska), General's wife (Danuta Stenka) constitute a brilliant insight into various, usually helpless, reactions towards evil, hypocrisy, injustice, cruelty and neutrality.

These stories are executed in an accurate and universal way. In such historic but tragic content, there is usually a tendency to become either too preachy or too emotional, which, to some extend, jerk the tears from viewers' eyes by force. Wajda does not do anything of these. He remains with the people, with humanity in general, does not give the final answer to anything. He seems to be with all of us and appears to depict a quest for truth, quest for justice and for humanity. Besides, he uses lots of very accurate symbols. The unforgettable and probably most thought provoking symbol is when Andrzej's wife looks for her husband and uncovers the bodies of soldiers. Among them, she occurs to uncover the figure of Christ taken from the Cross in church and laid among the deceased. Haven't we killed God by losing respect for life? Another brilliant symbol is when Russian soldiers tear the Polish flag into two parts, hanging the red part again as the Russian flag and using the white part as a foot dressing.

Except for the factors described above, KATYN is also a wonderful piece of work as a film. Very good cinematography, moody atmosphere, flawless performances. Artur Zmijewski does a brilliant job as Andrzej, Maja Ostaszewska is genuine as his wife and heroic, in a sense, Maja Komorowska is again a real artist in her job giving a real portrayal of the caring and then mourning mother. And Andrzej Chyra as Jerzy whose conscience and solidarity do not allow him to go on...magnificent!

But at the end I must tell you that it was not easy for me to write this review. The stories like this one do not lead to wordy comments, much noise, opinions, praise or criticism. They call for silence, the sacred silence that lets us honor those who died in such inhumane way. This silence shall constitute a significant message for today's generation, shall help us see deeper and give us faith to believe that their lives did not end in the soil. Therefore, though difficult, I consider KATYN one of the most important movies I have seen in my life.

Yes, dear young Patriot, hold Your Rosary high. The world will probably call your act "the act of despair". Yet, the world is befriended with lie and you are now victorious in a world of Glory and Eternal Light where there is no room for "lie". R.I.P.

KATYN is one of the most powerful World War II films I have ever seen and from the first frame of Poles fleeing from the Germans to the rear and the Russians in the front, an audience immediately feels the horror and claustrophobia of attempting to flee from the enemy, but with a sense of absolutely no where to run. The cast is simply superb, the story one of Polish Officers who meet their fate at the hands of the enemy, but with a sense of pride in themselves and their families, and the men and women who struggled to deal with both the Germans and the Russians and survive, is one written in the annals of history, but now with the truth of the slaughter finally brought to light. The final scenes in KATYN sent me from the theater with a sense of wanting to get a deep breath of air in my lungs, and to attempt to digest the horror I had just seen on the screen. KATYN deserves the Oscar and it is a film that will haunt you forever.

after seeing documentaries on The Katyn Forest Massacre; and, reading the book "Katyn: The Untold Story Of Stalin's Polish Massacre" by Allen Paul; - I thought that this movie would have used more, if any, 'real' names of the Polish officers (and, soldiers - sergeants and up, whom are both active and retired), to honor those who were murdered by the Russians.

Also, not all of those who were murdered by the NKVD in this incident were Polish. Many were Belarusians, Ukrainians, and, Jews.

HERO - Polish Major Adam Solski, who is mentioned in every documentary I've seen; and, mentioned in the book I read; wasn't even portrayed nor even 'spoken of' in this movie!?!? A DISGRACE!!! If not for Major Solski and the diary that he kept that was on his body, IN AN UNMARKED AND MURDEROUS PIT; and, later found by the Germans after they pushed the Russian forces out...many of the events taking place up to his own murder would have gone unknown.

Another monumental occurrence that this movie makes no mention of is all of the influential Polish civilians who were also murdered and buried in Katyn Forest; and, elsewhere (like those 1,800 or so who were drown in the Black Sea, and, whom the Russians claimed "escaped to Mongolia!?!?").

Plus, all of those Polish politicians; lawyers; doctors; engineers; police officers; land and factory owners; etc., who were murdered because they could 'think and organize' the Polish people.

Joseph Stalin! A completely-maniacal-and-paranoid-violent-buffoon, who controlled even lower, but, just as violent retards (the NKVD); completed, but, failed to covered-up his "Simplistic mind of 'total domination' over a 'total population' of 'total retardation' in himself and in his government!" The Russians, after the job was finished, then killed all of their own executioners!?!? Nice bunch of people - no honor or loyalties whatsoever. Just as Stalin did between 1936-1938 with what became known as 'The Great Purge.' He killed-off 'many' people in his own Communist Party; government; military; and, population, which only served to weaken his own nation.

Early on, Stalin realized (thought) that the basic instinct of 'normal' people was to 'kill all the leaders and all those who oppose!' YES! It is...for CAVEMEN! This is what Stalin, with the help of Lavrentiy Beria (head of the NKVD), was doing...and, 'anyone with an opposing mind or view has to go!' One of whom was a Polish Olympic ice skater; and, another was a young female Polish Air Force pilot!?!? I'm sure that these two were a 'real threat' to the pathetic Stalinist ideals of communism!?!?

No...murdering these loyal and honorable Polish officers and soldiers; and, civilians; and, all the rest, FOR Russia...wasn't a blessing upon mankind!?!? It wasn't even a blessing upon Russia nor the Soviet Union! Neither were the thousands of Poles and Polish loyalists who the Russians 'drown' in the Black Sea during this same time and claimed escaped to Mongolia.

This movie mentions none of this!?!?

To "HONOR" these people who died for no other reason than being 'loyal' to their nation, you must mention their 'real names.' This movie does none of that!?!? This movie is a simple generalization of events...but, not of the 'real people' who were 'murdered' to give realization to these events.

This movie is a 'VERY SIMPLE AND VAGUE' generalization of only a 'very small' part of what really happened in this murderous tragedy! This could have and should have been a longer epic tragedy about; and, an homage to all those who were senselessly murdered at the hands of psychopathic barbarians. Or, even better, it should have been a mini-series, much like "Holocaust" (1978); and, included all of the names, facts, and, details that I mentioned here that came from documentaries and books.

Watch some documentaries; and, read the book I mentioned; and, you'll get a personal and up-close view of what a real horror this "Katyn Massacre" really was when you know the names, the actual names, of 'real people' who were wastefully squandered in this mass-murdering lunatic fiasco. And, all because some 'Freak Leader,' Stalin, was "SO AFRAID" of the Poles...and, of everyone else in the world...including his family, friends, and, even his own people!?!? Just like Caligula!

P.S. - I've read all of the 'hated it' comments on this movie. With the overwhelming evidence from many sources, including dated documents found on the victims themselves...anyone who actually believes that the Nazis murdered these people either needs to do some research; they're bias; they're pro-Soviet; and/or, they need therapy! Years and years of therapy! This occurred in April of 1940, and, the Germans weren't even this far east at this time.

Even though the Nazis were also mass-murderers as well...they weren't so stupid as to bury their victims in their uniforms/clothing with every pocket filled with dated and incriminating documents; wearing dog tags; identification numbers written on their uniforms by the Soviets (Major Solski was #490); etc.

Along with the bodies of the victims, the oafish murderers even buried the German PPK pistols they used to kill these victims in the hopes that if the graves were ever discovered, the world would assume that the Germans perpetrated this crime. However, those pistol serial numbers were on Russian purchase orders in Germany at the Walther Company and dated before World War II ever began!?!?

An estimated minimum of 3 million Poles were killed by the Stalinist regime; but as Stalin observed "When one person dies it's a tragedy; when a million people die it's a statistic".

The scope of these activities would be considered genocide, if that term was used to describe political and social, as well as racial and religious populations.

So - less "statistically"- mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, kids, and friends were murdered for the political ends of those who now wish to remain faceless and unknown. It is critical, if we are to emerge as a humane people, that the unknown and faceless multitudes of both victims and their oppressors and killers, be reveled. This movie perhaps, is the first step in that direction.

It's Sept 1939. Anna and her daughter Nika are part of the stream of humanity heading east escaping the Nazis. They run into refugees heading west escaping the Soviets. Anna's husband Andrzej is a cavalry captain captured by the Soviets. He is one of 20k Polish officers held as POWs. His father is an university professor in Nazi-occupied Krakau. The teachers are all taken to concentration camps. Anna struggles to return to Krakau. Lt. Jerzy gives his sweater to Andrzej. As the war goes on, both the Nazis and the Soviets blame the other for the Katyn massacre of the Polish officers. The families of these men struggle to find the truth and conform to the various government officials during and after the war.

It's always important to correct a history that has been distorted by propaganda for so long. This does it sincerely and that is noteworthy. It does cover a lot of ground during and after the war. It's probably important to see the official account changing from one dictatorial government to the next. When the movie moves away from Anna, it does loses the thread of the story telling. While it's a sincere telling, the story does get muddled going between the various characters.

Wajda, whose father was one of the tens of thousands of victims of this mega war crime, has created a powerful film that should be viewed both within Poland and abroad.

To understand modern Poland, it is necessary to understand what happened to much of the country's pre-WWII intellectual makeup. Wajda constructs a film that lets film audiences comprehend if not the scale of the crime, at least its devastating effects on victims and their families.

The film is well edited. It takes a complex story and tells it in the amount of time that audiences can both sit and take in the details as well as tolerate the brutality of the event itself.

This excellent movie is a vivid portrayal about war. War has rarely been rendered in such an horrid, utterly grim manner, especially in its final part. Harrowing, unnerving epic which depicts the horror of war as a woman named Anna (Maja) roams the Russian detachments to find his prisoner husband (Arthur Zmijewski) during invasion and other stories. As Anna , her daughter and mother-in-law live in hopes which the father has survived . As a general's (Jan Eglert) wife keeps silence when a Russian officer obligate her to accuse the Germans of her husband's death. Furthermore the Anna's nephew whose father was killed at Katynn is pursued by Russian military for defacing an advertisement cartel . The story contains some overwhelming sequences as the massacre across the Katyn wood and including some actual documentary. It packs a sensible and spectacular musical score by the classic musician Krzystof Penderecki. Evocative and colorful cinematography by Pawel Edelman, usual of Roman Polanki and Wadja. The motion picture has splendidly been directed by the veteran Andrzej Wadja, the best Polish director who made classics as ¨Pan Tadeusz, Danton, The promised land, Kanal¨ among others.

The historic events in which this movie are based result to be the following : Hitler wanted to avoid facing a possible alliance of the Soviet Union , Britain and France. The Western democracies were equally aware of the Soviets' potential to deter German expansion but their negotiations with Stalin did not lead to any agreement. At the same time, however, Hitler had set aside his ideological differences with Stalin in the hopes of making an alliance. In August 1939 he offered Stalin a deal : If the Soviets allowed Germany to attack Western Poland , they would receive eastern Poland and Baltic states. The Munich capitulation of France and Britain to Hitler's demands convinced that they would be unreliable allies . He decided that he had to cope with German expansion eastward on his own, without their help. In late August 1939, German foreign Secretary Joachin Von Ribentropp visited Moscow to sign with Molotov a German-Soviet Nonagression Pact , which included the deal over territory. The agreement between two nations at opposite political extremes, fascism on one side , communism on the other, shocked the world. It also left Hitler with a free hand in Poland. Hitler used an apparent Polish raid on a Radio Station in the German border town of Gleiwitz as an excuse to invade Poland the following day , September 1, 1939. Two days later, on September 3, France and Britain declared war on Germany, WWII had begun. Beaten back by the Germans, Polish forces were now attacked from the east. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered his Red Army to cross into eastern Poland. He claimed that he wanted to prevent anarchy caused by the collapse of Polish government. Thousands of Soviet troops poured across the border and raced west to link up with German troops. Organized Polish resistance to the invaders collapsed. In the last week of September Polish troops in Modlin and Warsaw surrounded to the Germans, A small garrison of 4.500 men held out on the Hel Peninsula near Danzing until October 2. Some 694.000 Polish were seized by the victorious Germans and more than 217.000 Poles were rounded up by the Red Army. Both the Germans and Soviets treated the Poles with great brutality. Stalin ordered most of his prisoners deported to the Gulag (a system brutal labor camps) and later taking more than 20.000 officer prisoners were executed in secret.

This is not an average Oscar nominated Hollywood movie. There are few movies that are able to expose abyss of human nature, the darkest one in this case. It is not the most gruesome scenes, as one who knows the historical facts may expect to see, create emotional terror. Wajda masterfully leads the viewer deeply into reflections on how horrible humanity can become. There is little hope to change the course of the past, and yet when watching the film, one may catch himself hoping for a miracle of such a change. The journey through part of lives of those who were a part of this dark history is unforgettable.

As one can describe the included in Bethoveen's 9th "Ode to Joy" as the aspiration of humanity to reaching the best of itself, this movie shows what is the opposite alternative...

This film failed to explain why stalin ordered to kill all the officers. that was still a mystery to me after watching it. it didn't have any scenes from the Russian's perspective at all. that could have made this film much more powerful. it was just one side of story. it also didn't explain in a deeper level why the russians decide to make false accusations against the German as who killed those officers.

the film itself is too long and gets boring in some scenes, and it has random short stories.

it does have good cinemaphotography.

the history event itself is sad, but this film didn't make me feel emotional.

I've seen this movie about two month ago. The information that it's one of the nominees for Oscars '08 was a huge gladness for me but not a surprise, just like for millions of people in Poland. I knew from the first place that somebody out there in Hollywood will notice the beauty of clearness and disarming honesty of Katyń. That's not the movie that you go to just in order to kill some time and relax. You have to be aware of the historical facts if you want to understand Katyń in the best way. Wajda did a great job, along with really good actors that really felt their roles. World needed the movie that tells the whole story about what happened in Katyn in 1940. Finally, it got it.

On 17 September 1939, a group of Polish officers and soldiers are imprisoned by the Soviet Army on the border of Poland. Anna (Maja Ostaszewska) and her daughter Nika (Wiktoria Gsiewska) travel from Krakow to meet her husband and officer Andrzej (Artur Zmijewski) and they try to convince him to leave the soldiers and escape back home. However, Andrzej refuses to leave the troop and is deported to USSR. Later the Soviet tells that the Polish officers had been massacred by the Germans in the Katyn Forest with a shot on the back of the neck. However Anna retrieves Andrzej's diary and discloses that the soldiers had been actually murdered by the Soviet Army.

"Katyn" discloses a hidden genocide committed by the Stalinism through a group of civilian that lost a beloved husband, father or son. The importance of this movie is to tell the world this despicable massacre in World War II and the life in occupied Poland, and probably the Polish viewers will enjoy it much more than me since it is part of their history. I like the work of Andrzej Wajda, but in "Katyn" his direction seems to be lost with the confused screenplay that does not develop well several secondary characters and situations. Further, there is no explanation if there was an investigation of this bloodshed; if the criminals have been identified; if there was any consequence to the leaders. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Katyn"

Andrzej Wajda is a brave man. He made "The Man of Marble" and " The Man of Iron" a couple of years before the free trade unions started in Poland. Already in these pictures he attacked the communist system.

This is another variable of that theme. Here it is the Katyn massacre, there Polish officers were executed by the Soviets, who blamed all on the Nazis. And the Polish regime agreed upon it.

Wajda's method, in which he is better than almost anyone else, is showing the endless individual suffering behind the so called world history. Which makes this history more than statistics and analysis.

This is no exception.

Interesting examination of one of WW2's lesser-known atrocities - the murder of scores of Polish POWs by the Russians in 1940. Starts and ends well, but the middle loses pace and focus.