#285: WAJDA, Andrzej: Ashes And Diamonds (1958)

ANDRZEJ WAJDA: THREE WAR FILMS {Spine #282}

WAJDA, Andrzej (Poland)

Ashes And Diamonds [1958]

Spine #285
DVD

On the last day of World War Two in a small town somewhere in Poland, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland. In this incendiary environment we find Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki, who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar. But a mistake stalls his progress and leads him to Krystyna, a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. Gorgeously photographed and brilliantly performed, Ashes and Diamonds masterfully interweaves the fate of a nation with that of one man, resulting in one of the most important Polish films of all time.

103 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Polish

1:66:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2005

Director/Writers

Based on the novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski.

Screenplay by Andrzejewski and Andrej Wajda.

Wajda was 32 when he directed Ashes and Diamonds.

Other Wajda films in the Collection:

#283: A Generation (1955)
#284: Kanal (1957)
#464: Danton (1983)

The Film

Without the Polish October, we would not have this film, nor any other works by Polish artists, such as Kryzsztof Penderecki’s daring work from 1960 — Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.

Call it a Stalinist thaw (he’d been dead for five years in ‘58, but it took Khrushchev’s denunciation in the Secret Speech to gradually inform the people) … but it didn’t last long, in any case.

**

Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) and Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) have made a big mistake. In one of the many striking scenes in this film, Andrzej is on the phone with his superior, Major Florian (Ignacy Machowski). The mistake must be corrected, but not before Wajda shows us the three important characters in deep focus — Andrzej in the foreground on the phone; Maciek desperately trying to get Andrzej’s attention and the survivor of the mistake in the far background, Szczuka (Waclaw Zastrzezynski).

Maciek — so cool looking in his sunglasses (a result of spending so much time in the Warsaw sewers, he casually informs us) — is the central character. He represents an anti-Communist viewpoint, but Communism and Communists (along with aristocracy) seem to be the prevalent gestalt. Wajda probably had the censors so confused that they passed the film after a few rounds of vodka.

The idea of a character swinging on the hinges of the door between the two sides is represented by Drewnowski (Bogumil Kobiela) — the aide to the mayor, Swiecki (Aleksander Sewruk) — who had big prospects for advancement in the Communist government, but blew it all by purposefully getting stinking drunk at the big banquet he was supposed to be organizing. His transformation of a fire extinguisher 🧯 to a gun is one of the more hilarious moments in the film.

Last — but certainly not least — is the gorgeous Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska). She is all women, confounding man’s work by intense, focused love. In the end, Maciek is obviously much more interested in her than any political theatre.

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixteen-page booklet featuring an essay by Paul Coates.

“Ashes and Diamonds has rightly been lauded as one of the finest of postwar East-Central European films, and the most vital work of the Polish School. It is salutary, however, to remember how much controversy has dogged the film within Poland itself, and that this is more than a matter of regime-led misgivings about a work with potentially subversive accents. It stems from the film’s pursuit of conflicting goals: to deal with the Polish Home Army’s resistance against the incoming, Soviet-backed Communist regime and yet satisfy both the Polish populace who held that army dear and a Communist party that wielded powers of censorship, even though it had renounced a Stalinist rigor of repression. Criticize the Home Army too strongly and the audience will turn on you: offend the regime, and your film might be amputated or aborted. (Wajda himself reports efforts to remove Maciek’s death scene going right down to the wire of the first screening.)”

Commentary

By film scholar Annette Insdorf.

Insdorf is always a pleasure; but sometimes her microscopic examination of the film theory behind the movie seems a little nutso.

Is Andrzej perhaps homosexual? Who cares!

When she met Wajda before becoming professional, she cooed to him, “I want to teach your films someday!” His reply: “Better to teach the films of Welles and Ford, for they were my teachers.”

Nevertheless, she takes every opportunity to point out this low-angle shot (Citizen Kane) or the way too obvious meaning of the upside-down Christ statue, sandwiched by Krystyna and Maciek.

But, there’s a lot of good stuff too, especially the history of this brief thaw of artistic freedom. It wouldn’t be that free again until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 — and even today, it’s an iffy proposition …

Andrzej Wajda: On Ashes and Diamonds

A 35-minute interview with the director, second director Janusz Morgenstern, and film critic Jerzy Plazewski.

How they fooled the authorities into allowing the film to be released; how it snuck into Venice; how Arthur Rubenstein and René Clair saw the film, raved about it, and how it quickly became an international sensation.

Vintage

Newsreel footage on the making of Ashes and Diamonds.

Contemporary trailer; very short.

Rare behind-the-scenes

Production photos, publicity stills, and posters.

The production photos are fascinating.

Extras Rating (0-40):

36

56 + 36 =

92

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