ASHES AND DIAMONDS Movie Review

Popiol i Diament

Long before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing chaos, confusion, and factionalizing, Polish director Andrej Wajda created this complex and insightful work about the new and unexpected perils that arise when a hated regime is toppled. Taking place in a small Polish town in 1945, on the day that Germany surrendered. Ashes and Diamonds is the story of Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski in a brooding and memorable performance), an underground freedom fighter whose superiors have now instructed him to assassinate a local communist party official before he can place the town under the control of a Russian-backed government. By focusing the film on Maciek's dilemma, Wajda is able to show us a world in which the enemies are no longer so clear-cut. Those who fought side-by-side against the common Nazi enemy suddenly find themselves violently divided as to what direction to take next, and this would-be assassin is forced to contemplate what, if anything, military victory has meant, as long as the enemy remains hidden within us all. Based on a 1948 novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, Ashes and Diamonds is the third part of Wajda's “War Trilogy,” which includes A Generation (1954) and Kanal (1957). A piercing story of love, politics, and revolution, and the surprising yet recurring ways in which they intersect, Ashes and Diamonds is marred only by a modest amount of overly insistent symbolism—a minor flaw in an otherwise powerful and still-relevant work.

NEXT STOP … A Generation, Kanal, Man of Marble

1958 105m/B PL Zbigniew Cybulski, Eva Krzyzewska, Adam Pawlikowski, Bogumil Kobiela, Waclaw Zastrzezynski; D: Andrzej Wajda; W: Andrzej Wajda; C: Jerzy Wojcik; M: Jan Krenz, Filip Nowak. VHS, LV ING, MRV, NLC