Ashes & Diamonds (1958)

Film: Ashes & Diamonds

Director: Andrzej Wajda

Country: Poland

Released: October 1958

Runtime: 103 minutes

Genre: Drama

Studio: KADR

Influenced: Bernardo Bertolucci, Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Wong Kar-Wai, Agnieszka Holland

Set in a liberated Poland on VE day (8th May 1945), the storyline of Ashes & Diamonds centres around the main character Maciek Chelmicki, a young Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK) soldier who is tasked with assassinating a Communist leader. However, the assassination plot goes wrong, and Maciek finds himself questioning the morality of his mission and his role in a divided Poland. The film explores the tension between the Home Army, who fought as a resistance movement against the Nazis, and the Communist Polish Workers' Party, which is trying to assert its authority in government.

One of the reasons the film is so critically acclaimed is its visual style. Cameraman Jerzy Wójcik was influenced by Gregg Toland's deep-focus photography and was another graduate of the Łódź Film School, along with director Andrzej Wajda, assistant director Janusz Morgenstern and famous names of Polish cinema like Roman Polanski. Wójcik also worked with Wajda on the middle film in his war trilogy, Kanał (1957), about the Warsaw uprising of 1944, which was preceded by Pokolenie / A Generation (1955), about resistance fighters in Warsaw in 1942. Another strength of Ashes & Diamonds is the complex and profound script, adapted from a novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski.

Ashes & Diamonds is full of dramatic, sometimes strange, symbolism like the dead communist on fire as he falls into the church, the white horse, the upside down Christ figure with spikes coming out of his head, the fire extinguisher that puts out the war songs at the banquet and the embrace between Maciek and Szczuka after the latter is shot dead. Wajda's use of symbolism and metaphor adds layers of meaning to the film, while the haunting score by composer Jan Krenz adds to its emotional impact. The director uses Maciek's story as a metaphor for the larger post-war political struggle in Poland.

Maciek is like a Polish James Dean figure, brooding and enigmatic, and in the scene where the singer performs the war song Red Poppies of Monte Cassino, we get the picture of Maciek and his partner-in-crime Andrzej as men brutalised by war as they remember their fallen comrades. Maciek is searching for freedom and a new identity in the same way as his country, against a backdrop of political and social turmoil. Only when he meets a barmaid named Krystyna, who represents the hope and optimism of a new era, does he start to see a way out. It's a witty, profound and humane masterpiece.

"How old are you?", the communist officer asks.

"100", replies the young resistance fighter. He gets slapped.

"How old are you?", asks the officer again.

"101"