Michael Terceiro I really enjoyed this movie. It tells the story of three young men who join the Polish Resistance to fight the Germans in the Second World War. The interesting aspect of the movie is the exploration of the motivations of each of the men in deciding to fight the Germans. These men do not appear to all be motivated by patriotism but rather a variety of different motivations. The main character seems to be motivated by his attraction to the female leader of the Communist resistance, while the character played by Roman Polanski seems to be involved because he is looking for excitement. Finally, the Jasio character does not seem to have any idea why he is involved at all.This is a very gritty and realistic movie, which was apparently made to celebrate the anniversary of the Communist Party in Poland. It is interesting how the director, Andrzej Wajda, didn't quite make the movie which the Party had hoped he would make. On the DVD edition I watched there was an extended interview with Andrzej Wajda which is also very worthwhile. He explains how he did not really know what he was doing when he made A Generation and that the final product was not really what he had been asked to make. After some delay the Party did agree to release the movie.

Lee Eisenberg The movie that made Andrzej Wajda famous depicts a group of people in Poland's resistance during WWII. In one scene, the movie's protagonist Stach (Tadeusz Łomnicki) learns about Marxism from another man. It's clear that this speech is directed not only at the Nazi occupation, but also at the Soviet occupation. A scene towards the end of "Pokolenie" ("A Generation" in English) reminded me of Agnieszka Holland's "In Darkness", which was recently a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.As for what I thought of Andrzej Wajda's feature debut. I earlier saw Wajda's "Popiół i diament" ("Ashes and Diamonds" in English). From what I understand about the themes that Wajda depicted in that one, it sounded like what we might call the perfect Polish movie. "A Generation" is also really good, although I did find "Ashes and Diamonds" to be a little better. In an interview, Wajda noted that the title refers to his generation: the leaders of Poland's pre-war film industry had fled the country, and so his generation was essentially starting it from scratch.All in all, a very good movie. Watch for a young Roman Polanski as one of Stach's compatriots.

writers_reign Westerners like myself have at least two strikes on them when faced in 2010 with a film shot more or less half a century earlier under a regime which we in the West have never experienced. It begins very much in the vein of the Italian neo-realism school that began a decade earlier so that the first impressions are that Polish cinema was stuck in a stylistic rut but gradually it sheds that look and emerges as a movie in its own right. It is, of course, depicting events less than a decade old so presumably is authentic in that respect. For all I know there WERE groups of young Poles who became active in the Resistance at exactly the same time very much as the group here. For me it was difficult to become involved with the characters possibly because they were all and - with the exception of Roman Polanski who fails to distinguish himself here - and remain unknown to me, unlike say, the cast of L'Armee des Ombres. Nevertheless I will persevere with the other two - Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds - of the trilogy.

Cosmoeticadotcom Sometimes films get reputations way out of proportion with their artistic merit simply because they expound a point of view that the public, or critics, like or agree with. Such is the case with the first feature length film from Polish film legend Andrzej Wajda. Released in 1955, the 87 minute long black and white film A Generation (Pokolenie), is not a particularly good film. No, it's not a bad film, but it visually resembles a mediocre 1940s film noir admixed with a touch of Italian Neo-Realism from its blighted and impoverished landscapes. Its characters, such as they are, are not realistic, and merely one dimensional tools for the agitprop that is at the heart of the film.Yes, one must realize that the film needed to be green lighted by Polish censors, but unlike the ways a more mature Wajda, and later filmmakers like Roman Polanski (who has a small acting role in the film) and Krzysztof Kieslowski (called the Polish School), would, A Generation plays out more like a Primer for Communism. It became part of a de facto War Trilogy of films made about Poland's World War Two Experience, and it is packaged by The Criterion Collection as part of a Three War Films collection, along with Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół I Diament). Hopefully the two later films provide more true cinema to be savored .The cinematography by Jerzy Lipman is solid but unspectacular, and the scoring not even up to Hollywood B film melodrama standards. Often, mediocre films like this are defended by acolytes on grounds that its visuals are 'pure cinema,' or some such. Well, this one's are not, but even were the mise-en-scene great, it would not make up for the leaden acting, dull script, and agitprop galore. Given that an average feature film will have dozens to hundreds of framed shots, the laws of average, and random chance, will demand that a few will be well-composed. So? It's whether or not a far greater number than average are which matters. Or whether or not the few that are are super-poetic, or the like. Then, one might have an argument over the visual elements raising up the bar for the film. A Generation lacks that, all of that.Similarly, although it is reasonable to argue that the Marxist references in the film were intended, at the time, as a sly backhanded critique of the system, none of that matters now, as it is simply blatant agitprop. Great art rises above such strictures, and the idiocies of would be censors. Minor anachronisms- such as a racist caricature of a black man on a cuckoo clock, are not as egregious, since it is emblemic of the times and its attitudes. Overall, A Generation does show some promise, especially in the Jasio Krone character, and a few scenes of realistic interplay, such as when Dorota and Stach first have sex, because she refuses to let him leave after the Nazi curfew has come. But, these are few. Wajda may have gone on to become a great filmmaker, but that grace is not evident here. Perhaps that is another legacy of art in totalitarian states, inside or outside a celluloid frame.