“Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives,” announces a narrator, foretelling the tragedy that unfolds as a war-ravaged company of Home Army resistance fighters tries to escape the Nazi onslaught through the sewers of Warsaw. Determined to survive, the men and women slog through the hellish labyrinth, piercing the darkness with the strength of their individual spirits. Based on true events, Kanal was the first film ever made about the Warsaw Uprising and brought director Andrzej Wajda to the attention of international audiences, earning the Special Jury Prize in Cannes in 1957. —The Criterion Collection
A major figure in the world of post-World War II Eastern European cinema, Polish director Andrzej Wajda has chronicled his country’s political and social evolution with sensitivity, fervor, and a refusal to make compromises in dealing with his difficult subjects. The son of a Polish cavalry officer who was killed early in World War II, Wajda fought in the Resistance movement against the Nazis when he was still a teenager. After the war, he studied to be a painter before entering the Lodz film school. On the heels of his apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct a film on his own. With A Generation (1955), the first-time director poured out all his bitterness and disillusionment regarding blind patriotism and wartime heroics, using as his alter ego a young, James Dean-style antihero played by Zbigniew Cybulski. The Wajda/Cybulski team went on to make two more films of escalating brilliance, which further developed the antiwar theme of A Generation… read more
A strange and haunting road movie. No trip has been this harrowing and pointless since Jonah walked in circles inside the belly of the whale. Considering Poland's immediate post war history, it's not surprising that there is no light at the end of this tunnel.
I love this film, I think it is Wajda's best film. Imperfect, but the rawness of it only adds to the sense of desperation and chaos. Should be seen by everyone.
While the other two films in Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy - Pratidwandi (The Adversary) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman)—show the bleak prospects
The First Part Andrzej Zulawski swings his camera like a steel fist. Indeed, right at the start of his first feature, The Third Part of the