Kanal
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Movie Reviews of Kanal
Movie Review: Captures the Subterranean Component of the Foredoomed and Betrayed Warsaw Uprising
Summary: 5 Stars
I first saw Wajda's classic film while visiting Poland decades ago. Intended for an informed Polish audience, it doesn't provide much historical context. For this reason, I include an introduction for the benefit of the non-Polish viewer.
As the Red Army was about the drive the Germans out of Poland, the Polish Underground (AK) came out in open warfare against the Germans (Operation Burza, or Tempest). The AK seized several cities from the Germans in eastern Poland prior to the arrival of Soviet troops.
But Poland had already been betrayed by Churchill and Roosevelt in the events leading up to and including Teheran. The Soviets had no interest in respecting Polish sovereignty and feared no consequences for violating the same. No sooner had the eastern Polish cities been freed than the AK was disarmed and its leaders either shot by the NKVD or shipped to Siberian concentration camps.
Then came Warsaw's turn--only much worse. The Red Army was on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The Uprising was launched, intended for a three-day fight. It turned into a 63-day agony. The Red Army stood fast...and stood...and stood. It wouldn't move again for six months. The Soviets wanted the Germans to complete the dirty work of destroying the flower of Polish resistance.
The use of sewers for transport of goods and people had been pioneered and developed some 16 months earlier during the Polish Underground's assistance to the Jewish Ghetto Uprising. During the Polish uprising, as sections of Warsaw fell to the vastly more powerful German forces, the only way out was through the sewers. Wajda's dramatic film captures the drama of the evacuation of Polish fighters and civilians through the sewers of Warsaw. The evacuees not only had to contend with sewage and sewer gasses, but also German booby traps. One scene shows the disarming of a trap consisting of a wired network of German "potato masher" grenades.
The taking of POWs by Germans needs clarification. At first, during the Uprising, captured soldiers and civilians were summarily killed. Tens of thousands of unarmed Polish civilians were systematically murdered by the Germans at Wola alone. But then the Germans promised to spare civilians and to afford POW status to the captured combatants. This was no sudden discovery of humanitarianism towards the Slavic untermenschen. The Germans realized that the Poles would never surrender as long as their deaths were inevitable in any case. Also the Germans, realizing that they would likely lose the war, wanted to set a precedent of captured guerillas being afforded POW status in the event of future German guerilla warfare. Finally, there was the specter of postwar war-crimes trials, and the belated need for good German behavior.
Nevertheless, the foregoing considerations didn't stop the Germans from burning and blowing up Warsaw's historic buildings after the Uprising. The Red Army waited outside Warsaw for another three months after the surrender of the Uprising to give the Germans ample time to do this. Scarcely any habitable buildings in Warsaw remained.
Movie Review: Last Days of Warsaw Resistance.
Summary: 5 Stars
Andrzej Wajda is one of the best Pole filmmaker.
He has delivered more than 50 movies, many of them multi-awarded and with critic's acclaim. His beginnings were under very restricted conditions in his native Poland, low budget and censored thematic. Even thou he managed to create powerful art pieces.
Only as a sample we may mention: the poetical and stark "The Birch Wood" (1970); Oscar nominated "The Promised Land" (1975); Cannes Golden Palm nominated "Without Anesthesia" (1978) and "Danton" (1983) Cesar Award.
"Kanal" (1957) is a poignant & realistic war drama; it was awarded with Cannes' Jury Special Prize and nominated for the Golden Palm. It is also the second film in Wadja's War trilogy, "A generation" (1955) and "Ashes and Diamonds" (1958).
It is filmed in black & white, with preciosity illumination, due to Jerzy Lipman, in the staged underground sewers of occupied and demolished Warsaw, where the last soldiers of the Polish Home Army take refuge, giving an oppressive and claustrophobic sensation to the viewer.
The story depicts the last 48 hours of Resistance's company, in September 1944, when the Germans were eradicating the last struggling pouches.
A residual group of the former company enters the sewers (kanal in polish) and gets lost and separated in smaller groups. Each of them is followed to their bitter end.
There are some material drawbacks in the film, mostly referred to tanks representation, they are seen from some distance but they obviously are not very accurate. Nevertheless, as a compensation, the strange Goliath remote controlled tracked mine that were effectively used by Germans to demolish Polish strongpoint is correctly depicted.
Wajda defied the communist system showing the anathematized uprising deviously evading censorship.
Playacting is excellent with Teresa Izewska (BFTA nominee for this film), Tadeusz Janczar and Wienczyslaw Glinski (who won Best Actor prizes in 1959 and 1964 for other performances), as the best in a compact group of artists.
The screenplay is due to Jerzy Stefan Stawiñski who was a former member of the Polish Home Army and experienced the sewers odyssey himself.
It is a great movie recommended for history buffs, but also to anyone that wants to see a human drama. Do not miss it!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Movie Review: possibly greatest war film ever
Summary: 5 Stars
I think Andrzej Wajda is overrated (personally, I think Kazimierz Kutz is the best among contemporary Polish directors), but for my money this is the best war film ever made. Perhaps the reason is that the camera work was done by Kutz (spelled "Kuc" in the credits), as (at least according to the story I've heard) Wajda was too delicate to actually go down in the sewers (yes, the excrement spattered on the faces of the actors is real; those are real sewers). The despair portrayed as each of these young people moves toward his or her inevitable death is relentless (though the film almost never depicts the actual moment of death), and the fact that we are told in the very first moments of the film what fate awaits them certainly does not spoil the effect. In an era when propagandistic cliches about the Germans were practically de rigueur in Polish cinema, the artistry of the film is demonstrated in one of the final scenes, when a young man emerges from the sewer and is disarmed by a German soldier; the soldier does not scream or behave like a brute, but instead behaves in as calm and civilized a manner as if he were simply taking a prisoner of war in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention. (In fact, according to what I've read about what happened after the Warsaw Uprising was finally crushed, when the Polish soldiers were disarmed they were indeed often treated with respect and sometimes even saluted by the German soldiers.) The final scene is possibly the most chilling of all, as one officer, having endured the ordeal of the journey through the city's sewers but learning that some young fighters have been left behind (and are almost certainly already dead), goes back down into the sewers to find them, pulling the manhole cover back over his head ...Movie Review: One of the giants war films in any age!
Summary: 5 Stars
Kanal is a grim , sad and powerful drama of Polish patriots who use the servers of Warsaw in an attempt to escape from the Nazis during the uprising of 1944 .
In the middle of this unbeatable tragedy you can watch different voices and attitudes . The somber pianist playing Chopin , and other characters literally struggled for this opressive atmosphere . Wajda made his masterpiece , unrelieved in intensity and fierce .
A thousand carats gem . Disturbing and haunting work of the polish cinema .
Movie Review: Crawling through the sewers seeking freedom
Summary: 4 Stars
Although the film is depressing, it is worth watching. One gains an idea of the conditions of Poland during the war and how the Poles tried to fight back against overwhelming odds. The film itself is very dark, with much of it taking place in the sewers.In this film, a band of Polish soldiers is ordered to retreat through the sewers. Giving up their holding is disappointing to the men, but they have little choice because they lack the weapons and reinforcements to hold their position any longer. The sewers are a maze in which the soldiers try to find their way to freedom.
"Kanal" (1957) is directed by Andrzej Wajda. This Polish film is in black-and-white, 96 minutes long, and has optional English subtitles.
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