tieman64 With WW2 ending, Poland finds itself in a period of transition and transformation. Millions have been uprooted, the country's infrastructure is in ruins, and there is uncertainty as to whether Russian Communists will move in to occupy the vacuum left by the departing Germans. Enter Maciek, a gunman who works for an anti-Communist faction. He's been tasked with assassinating Polish politicians sympathetic to the local communist party, which is what Andrzej Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds" finds Maciek doing when it opens. His mission complete, Maciek then disappears to a neighbouring town, eager to learn his next assignment. What he learns, however, is something else: he's assassinated the wrong target. The rest of the film finds Maciek struggling to rationalise the killing of his fellow countrymen. The film's title encapsulates Poland's twin possibilities: destruction or prosperity. Maciek will not accept that the latter necessitates the former.The film plays like a pessimistic, very Eastern European take on "Cassablanca", most of the action taking place in bars, restaurants, shadows and over tables. This is a world rife with spies, communists, anti-communists, double-dealers, mercenaries, power vacuums, red herrings and characters who's loyalties constantly shift. Maciek's no Bogart, though. No cocksure American. He's a confused kid straight out of a 1970s Godard or Fassbinder movie, complete with big sunglasses and a part-time job as a terrorist. Hilariously, Maciek seems to never take off his sunglasses: his world is perpetually pitch black.The film's aesthetic, heavy with a type of symbolism typical of Wajda (upside down Christs, white horses which foreshadow Wajda's "Lotna" etc), tries to capture Maciek's own stormy, crisis of conscience. It's a noirish dark night of the soul. World War 2 has ended, Poland has survived, and yet why does she now find herself again at war? Why now are Poles killing Poles? How can Maciek justify killing his fellowmen? Today such moral dilemmas, as well as killing itself, has long been banalized down to nothingness. It's not that man no longer cares; man cares but does "it" anyway. The film ends with Maciek's own death, his blood stains forming the Polish flag, his body melting away into a field of garbage.Like many of Andrzej Wajda's films during this period, "Ashes and Diamonds" was a giant exercise in smuggling the artist's own political views past state censors. After WW2, Stalin created a communist, Soviet allied Polish state, officially dubbed "The People's Republic of Poland". As a part of the Eastern bloc, works of art in Poland deemed "oppositional" to both the Soviet Union and communism were firmly stamped out. And yet many of Wajda's films - though they tend to do this in a somewhat vague, elliptical way - are heavily critical of Polish politics and his local government's ties with the Soviet Union. Some authors have speculated that Poland's love for rebel archetypes and resistance fighters – local characters mythologised during WW2 - blinded censors to the "Ashes and Diamonds'" overall point: idiots, we're killing ourselves for Uncle Stalin!8.5/10 – "Ashes and Diamonds" is customarily thought of as being the second film in Wajda's "War Trilogy". The other films include "Kanal" (1957) and "A Generation" (1955). Worth two viewings.

tedsteinberg Almost every major scene was overdone, especially the death scenes - as a farce this was a reasonably good film, as a tragedy it's tragic. At times, I was laughing and wondering if Fellini had seen this parody of his approach to telling stories via cinema. I didn't read the book; I watched this film eagerly with no previously held opinion one way or the other I have a large collection of Criterion type films, and probably that's the reason I had never got around to watching Ashes & Diamonds. FWIW, I watched it alone because I wanted to "be in the tunnel" so to speak.From the beginning, there were no real surprises and it was apparent the director was going to be in a "do you get it?" mood. Much of the acting was either wooden or in a state of suppressed hysteria.As a chronicle of Poland's shock at not being victorious after years of hell, this film deserves high marks for it's depiction of Poles making the best of a hollow celebration. As a potential awakening for both the assassin and his intended victim, the film is entitled once again, to high marks. As a love story, much of it is well done.Then, what's the problem? Too many cross currents, many of which were just exercises in thrashing and flailing, and, for me, I was looking for something to chew on and digest as opposed to being shown overly long drawn out scenes of either silliness or despair; that's when it occurred to me I was not a member of the director's choir; after a round of expletives I calmed down and thought of Fellini's and Bergman's approaches to developing a story and wished they'd made this film.

Boba_Fett1138 This is a movie that becomes mostly great due to its fine directing approach. The movie at times picks an artistic approach but without disconnecting itself ever from its viewers.It's really the way how this movie looks that made this an interesting and good watch for me. It features some beautiful black & white cinematography and it has some some really strong and unforgettable images in it.The story in itself is being kept deliberately small and simple. The movie very rarely dwells, which is a good thing but it at the same time also prevents this movie from making a truly lasting impression with a good or powerful story. In my opinion the movie was lacking this, which prevented me from truly regarding this movie as a perfect movie, or a must-see classic, even though it is generally being regarded as perhaps the best and most definitive Polish movie ever made.Neverhteless, the characters all do work out well, due to the movie its story and overall approach. It was also truly a pleasure to watch Zbigniew Cybulski act, who is known as the Polish James Dean. He was truly great and really solely carried the movie, for most part.Due to the fact that the movie is being kept simple and small, there is also very little to indicate in this movie that it's actually one being set during WW II. Don't know whether this was done intentionally or not but anyway, I liked that about this movie. It's a war movie without the war and everything that goes along with that and basically all that ever indicates that there is war going on is shown by the presence of a few soldiers.A solid but above all things beautifully directed movie, by Andrzej Wajda.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Eumenides_0 I first discovered the enormity of the atrocities perpetrated by the Soviets in Poland through the non-fiction book The Captive Mind, by Polish author Czeslaw Milosz. One of the things that stuck with me was that the Polish resistance members who fought the Nazis were not seen as heroes by the Soviets, because those Poles were defending the old bourgeois order. So the old militaries and intelligentsia had to be killed to pave the way for a new state that upheld the values of the revolution.Andrzej Wajda captures this situation in Ashes and Diamonds, adapting a novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, coincidentally one of the intellectuals Milosz devotes a chapter to and who served the revolution with a lot of faith and ardour. Still, this is not a propaganda movie; Wadja somehow managed to trick the censors into not seeing criticism against the way the Soviet Union betrayed the people who believe in its ideals.Actor Zbigniew Cybulski plays Maciek Chelmicki, a killer working for the communists, who receives orders to kill Szczuka, a Communist leader. Although Maciek always found killing easy in the past, now he has to kill a former soldier and one of the many who believes in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, after falling in love with a barmaid, he realises that his life is a cycle of violence and that he wants to put an end to it. What follows is a night of self-discovery for the young killer.Although I wanted to like this movie more, a disjointed and often confusing narrative construction threw me off at several points. Cybulski is perfect as the killer, though, initially relaxed and thorough, then as the night progresses he becomes introspective and melancholic. I also loved the cinematography, especially the games between light and shadow. My favourite sequence was the murder of Szczuka. As he falls in Maciek's arms fireworks ignite in the sky celebrating the end of war; Maciek runs away leaving the body by a puddle, the fireworks reflecting in the water. His personal crisis and the celebration of an entire country come together and we know the future won't bode well for either.In free countries like Italy and France cinema revered communism. Movies like Novecento sound awfully dated nowadays. In countries where communism existed under no guises, their movies have remained timeless. This is not just a condemnation of one of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes that ever existed, but a depiction of human nature wherever ideals overthrow respect for life and dignity. Fifty-one years later, Ashes and Diamonds remains modern.