Tonight at CSUN we saw "Ashes and Diamonds" the third movie in Andrzej Wajda's "War Trilogy", which also happened to be the first three films he ever made, and which he is still best known for. If his debut "A Generation" was very good, and made him a new filmmaker worth watching, and if his second feature "Kanal", a tense, grim thriller, turned him into a major force in Polish filmmaking, then it was "Ashes and Diamonds", his final statement on the Polish Underground, that catapulted him onto the international stage as a major director. "Ashes and Diamonds" is a straight up classic of European cinema, and Professor Tim even said that it is in his all time Top Ten films.
Well, so what is all the fuss about......?
The main thing is the film's style. You know how "Casablanca" has Style (with a capital S), or "Citizen Kane" has Style, in spades I might add..?
"Ashes and Diamonds" has that same level of style. You might not expect that from a filmmaker from Poland who was 32 when he made the movie, but when you watch it, especially on the big screen as we were fortunate to see tonight, you are very impressed with young Wajda's mastery of a range of cinematic techniques. He was obviously a fan of Hollywood thrillers of the 1940s and 50s, and a fan of Noir, no doubt. But in adapting the Noir style of filmmaking to his home country and political environment, he created his own brand of what I will call a Stylish Political Thriller.
The movie takes place almost all in one night, on May 8th 1945, when Germany has surrendered to the Allies, under terms that are going to give control of Poland to the Soviet Union. I have said it before, but imagine being a Pole, and having been destroyed by Hitler for almost six years, and then suddenly there is "peace", but Joseph Stalin is going to be your new overseer.
Imagine that.
But the thing was, that some Poles, perhaps many (I do not know the statistics) were grateful to Stalin and the Soviet army for ridding their country of the Nazi occupiers.
Unfortunately for Poland, what the grateful citizenry might not have known was that Uncle Joe was going to dominate them just as powerfully if not more so than Hitler had done, though he may not have equaled Hitler in routing the Polish people in genocide.
It is fair to say that both men were monsters, and that the country of Poland, and it's people, were caught in between the two regimes. Imagine being a citizen in such a country. You are finally rescued from Adolf Hitler after six years, and your rescuer is......Joseph Stalin.
Might suck, eh?
Yeah, to put it mildly.
But on with the plot. The war has ended, and the country is mostly relieved and ready to celebrate, but there is a small band of Resistance Fighters who see the new Soviet threat for what it is, and are ready to attack it's local bosses in their area. This is where the style comes in, and rescues the movie from being merely political. The star of the film is an actor named Zbigniew Cybulski. I had seen him once before in this role when I saw "Ashes and Diamonds" on dvd several years ago. He was known as the Polish James Dean, because according to Wajda himself, they had seen Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause" and wanted to model Cybulski's character, and his acting, after Dean's character in "Rebel". And so Cybulski became the "Polish James Dean". And there is definitely a resemblance in the look and acting styles of both men. But in watching Cybulski for a second time tonight, in such a masterful movie, I think he needs to be considered an iconic actor in his own right, and I imagine he is, to fans and critics of European art cinema.
Cybulski plays a citizen soldier of the last remnants of the Resistance, who - with few members remaining - have pledged themselves to stand up to their Soviet Saviors/Conquerors (take your pick).
But he is all James Dean-ed out. Even though the film was set in 1945, it was made in 1957, so a "rock n' roll" lead character was introduced as a metaphor. Cybulski doesn't really want to fight anymore. He himself is now a Rebel Without A Cause, and when he goes into a bar with his comrades to celebrate the end of the war, he falls in love with the bar tendress, a young woman whose life has been upended.
The entire plot of the film takes place during a party on the night of May 8th, in celebration of the German surrender. At this party are Polish diplomats, a mayor, a famous conductor and his small orchestra, and society matrons and patrons, those who have been able to hang on during the war years, and not lose hope or their lives. They are what is left of the Polish bourgeoisie.
But times are changing, and James Dean is taking over, metaphorically speaking. You have to see the film to understand, and ultimately "Ashes and Diamonds", despite it's grand 1940s/50s American thriller style and photography, is indeed a political film to it's core.
But as Keith Richards once said, "Do you know what conquered the Soviet Union? It wasn't politicians. It was blue jeans and rock n' roll".
He meant that it was a Western influence, which the Soviets had desperately tried to keep out of Russia and the countries, including Poland, that had fallen under their rule during the dark decades after WW2, in the era of the Iron Curtain.
But Rock 'N Roll got through, that rebelliousness and that style.
That's what this movie is about, finally. It's a big kick in the ass, culturewise, to the regimes that were in power prior to and at the time it was made, the Nazis and the Soviet Union.
Wadja the director is saying, way back in 1958, hey guess what? We side with the West.
Polish courage, formidable as it has always been, would come to signal the end of Soviet communism even before the Wall fell in Berlin, with the movement of Union workers known as "Solidarnosc" (Solidarity). The "Solidarity" movement began in 1980, led by Lech Walesa, and was the first nail in the coffin of Soviet domination in Poland.
I give "Ashes and Diamonds" the highest recommendation possible. See it for Style, see it for Rebelliousness, see it for Romance, and for a big F You to regimes of any kind.
You can't beat Rock N' Roll. History proves it; it still stands.
See you in the morn, and I will get back to 1989 tomorrow. Think "surveillance" until then.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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