This film starts off pretty creaky and feeling like a movie your grandfather might have watched. Set on the 56th day of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, it's got what seem to be a stilted portrayal of the situation, and a tone which seems off when two very attractive women (Teresa Izewska and Teresa Berezowska), members of the resistance, are flirting and sleeping with a couple of the men. If that puts you off initially, bear with it.
As soon as the rebels take to the sewers to evade the Nazis, Wajda takes us to an extraordinary place physically and psychologically, and makes us feel as if we were actually there, at least as much as possible. It's incredibly claustrophobic, disorienting, dark, and disgusting, and the way he shoots this, with just how little he makes visible at times, feels very modern and like a horror movie. One of the characters quotes Dante, and it fits perfectly. I think in focusing all of this time in the sewer, Wajda wisely avoided having to tell us the bigger story of the Warsaw Uprising, which would have been tough given the Soviet censors (and shameful Soviet inaction during the events of 1944). He also gives us a profound metaphor for the human condition, warfare, and the humiliation of the Polish people all in one heartbreaking go.
The film memorializes the men, women, and children who so bravely rose up against the Nazis, and held parts of the city for a couple of months before it was brutally leveled in retaliation by Hitler, which is obviously poignant. The script was written by Jerzy Stefan Stawinski, a fighter in the Uprising who survived, and it's based on his real experiences, and yet Wajda managed to create something that also feels mythological, or apocalyptic. Brilliant ending too.
As soon as the rebels take to the sewers to evade the Nazis, Wajda takes us to an extraordinary place physically and psychologically, and makes us feel as if we were actually there, at least as much as possible. It's incredibly claustrophobic, disorienting, dark, and disgusting, and the way he shoots this, with just how little he makes visible at times, feels very modern and like a horror movie. One of the characters quotes Dante, and it fits perfectly. I think in focusing all of this time in the sewer, Wajda wisely avoided having to tell us the bigger story of the Warsaw Uprising, which would have been tough given the Soviet censors (and shameful Soviet inaction during the events of 1944). He also gives us a profound metaphor for the human condition, warfare, and the humiliation of the Polish people all in one heartbreaking go.
The film memorializes the men, women, and children who so bravely rose up against the Nazis, and held parts of the city for a couple of months before it was brutally leveled in retaliation by Hitler, which is obviously poignant. The script was written by Jerzy Stefan Stawinski, a fighter in the Uprising who survived, and it's based on his real experiences, and yet Wajda managed to create something that also feels mythological, or apocalyptic. Brilliant ending too.