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For some the last day of World War II does not mean an
end to fighting. Unwilling to trade the tyranny of a fascist
dictatorship for a Soviet Communist one, Maciek Chelmieki,
a member of the Polish Home Army has been ordered to assassinate
the incoming commissar. Having failed in his first attempt,
to the cost of two innocent lives, he is ordered to complete
his mission. He checks into a local hotel where he meets and
falls in love with Krystyna. This chance meeting tears Maciek
between two desires, the choice of a normal life with Krystyna
and his need to carry out his orders. Whichever choice he
makes, he looses...
Ashes and Diamonds (1958 - B&W) was directed by Andrzej
Wadja and adapted by Wadja and Jerzy Andrejewski from Andrejewski's
original novel. The film was nominated for a BAFTA in 1960
and won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1959.
This is a much lauded film, partly because of the constrictions
under which it was made. At the time of the film's creation
the Soviets were spending a great deal of time trying to discredit
the Polish Home Army - an organisation much beloved of the
Polish people. This lead to a problem for Wadja. If he made
Maciek too much of a hero, then the film would never be seen.
His attempts to tarnish his hero, enough for the film to pass
the censor, can be seen in the opening sequence, where, not
only does Maciek kill the wrong people, but does so with a
level of violence to deter most people from seeing him as
a hero. Worst still, in a deeply religious country, he does
not stop shooting the man even though he has reached the sanctuary
of a chapel. Likewise the Communists are usually shown as
polite and intelligent, which is in stark contrast to the
representative of the free press, who is depicted as little
more than a drunk. Obviously, there is a view that anything
made under the constrictions of a totalitarian government
gets extra star points.
There is no doubt that Ashes and Diamonds is a good
film, and an important landmark in the re-emergence of the
post war Polish film industry, but it is not a film without
faults. For me, the most telling problem is the cinematography.
For a film set in the last twenty-four hours of World War
Two its use of stark contrast looks and feels very much like
a product of Hollywood in the sixties.
Zbigniew Cybuski, who plays Maciek, looks like an uber cool
James Dean character, and was often favourably compared to
him. The bar in which many of scenes are played out in would
not have looked out of place in a Cliff Richard film. I would
not pretend to be an expert on Polish social history, but
the well fed, well dressed actors is not what I would have
expected to see from a country which was invaded then reinvaded
during the course of the war. Cybuski is very effective in
his antihero role and pretty much carries most of the film.
The film is in Polish with burnt in subtitles. The 4:3 print
is surprisingly free of artefacts. Audio is stereo, though
it is not the type of film that would have benefited from
anything else. There are no extras on the disc, which is a
shame as a retrospective look at the importance of the film
both to Polish people and to the country's movie industry
as an art form, would have been invaluable for western audiences
to gain some perspective.
Charles
Packer
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