GurlyIamBeach
Instant Favorite.
FeistyUpper
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
gavin6942
During the German occupation noble, bourgeois and worker's partisan groups lived in peace with another. On the first day of freedom they start to fight each other. In these fights is weaved a most tender love story.I love that with all sets containing ceilings, the action really does seem to be "underground" -- these are not just underground rebels in the figurative sense, but really, truly under. And then through in some of the visual symbols, like the upside-down statue of Christ (or what appears to be Christ) blocking most of a shot... genius.This really needs to be watched by me again and watched by others more than it already has been. This is just so great, with a nice, crisp monochrome that we do not often see as well in American films. Saying the lead actor was the "Polish James Dean" is selling him short -- he is better than Dean ever was.
Michael Terceiro
I watched the Wadja War Trilogy back to back, so you can imagine I was looking forward to the final instalment which is generally considered to be the best of the three. However, I was quite disappointed. The reason for my disappointment was because O felt the lead character was trying much too hard to be a Polish James Dean. The only difference being that the odd things James Dean used to do when he was acting, didn't seem weird out of place. Unfortunately, you don't get the same feel from the weird things that the lead in Ashes and Diamonds keeps doing throughout this movie. Even the final scene seems to me to be quite strange and almost comical.Having said that, the plot is great and Wajda does a great job capturing the atmosphere of confusion which must have existed in Poland on the last day of the war. Nationalists and communists were no longer fighting a common foe in the Nazis - rather they were now fighting each other for the right to rule Poland. Despite my reservations about the lead character, this is still worth watching. Given the other reviews I have read about this movie, I am clearly in a minority in my views about the lead character.
Boba_Fett1138
This is a movie that becomes mostly great due to its fine directing approach. The movie at times picks an artistic approach but without disconnecting itself ever from its viewers.It's really the way how this movie looks that made this an interesting and good watch for me. It features some beautiful black & white cinematography and it has some some really strong and unforgettable images in it.The story in itself is being kept deliberately small and simple. The movie very rarely dwells, which is a good thing but it at the same time also prevents this movie from making a truly lasting impression with a good or powerful story. In my opinion the movie was lacking this, which prevented me from truly regarding this movie as a perfect movie, or a must-see classic, even though it is generally being regarded as perhaps the best and most definitive Polish movie ever made.Neverhteless, the characters all do work out well, due to the movie its story and overall approach. It was also truly a pleasure to watch Zbigniew Cybulski act, who is known as the Polish James Dean. He was truly great and really solely carried the movie, for most part.Due to the fact that the movie is being kept simple and small, there is also very little to indicate in this movie that it's actually one being set during WW II. Don't know whether this was done intentionally or not but anyway, I liked that about this movie. It's a war movie without the war and everything that goes along with that and basically all that ever indicates that there is war going on is shown by the presence of a few soldiers.A solid but above all things beautifully directed movie, by Andrzej Wajda.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/
polina-benderskaya-1
A masterpiece for all time. One of those films that one can not watch, which simply can not. Its like any genuine work of art can be seen at different levels: here - and the gunman, and the detective and love story, and the human drama, amounting to tragedy, and this is the existential drama and thinking about the national character, the fate of Poland - all for striking deeper level translation. It is unique in the film work of the operator, as built by frame, as planned, each episode. The game actors, so can we call this game??? Tsibulsky does not play, he just lives in this film! Some episodes ever sink into the mind: machine turn, opens the door to the church, a hapless, drop dead right at the altar ( "Lord Jesus" delivers one of the killers, in my opinion, Drevnovsky), a scene where she sings "Red poppies Monte -Cassini, but Machek and Anzhey Remembers his comrades, burning glasses with vodka, and Christine Machek, reciting poems on the tomb in the tumbledown church, killing Pikes when Helmitsky compresses old man killed in the arms and after shots Graham celebratory fireworks, white sheets, which is the blood Macheka, displaying the colors of the flag when it falls on the scrap-heap agonizing under the sounds of Oginski's polonez, which carries away its Cristina another man ... Sorry, that so much and confused, but on the other, I talk about this film can not, so much he means to me. If you still doubt - to watch or not - brush them: no see, not paying attention to the year of issue, so show your friends. Because it's a REAL MOVIE, but that is now in theaters, that spinning on the box that receives the Oscar - Household soap and odnodnevka (film that you'll forget right after watching it). But this - movies with a capital letter.
