A Woman at War

This is a Polish film shot entirely in Poland, in Wroclaw (Breslau) with an outstanding Polish score by Stanislas Syrewicz, and seldom has a musical score fitted better into a film than this one. It is dark and ominous, expressionistic and highly tense, loaded with engagement in the story in the same way as the music of "The Third Man" by Carol Reed, Anton Karas playing the zither, and this music is equally poignant and gripping. Martha Plimpton makes a terrific unforgettable performance as the young girl who has to keep her stern face at any cost, no matter what she experiences by the loss of parents and friends, colleagues and comrades, making a war of her own against the Nazis by pretending to be one of them just to fight them discreetly behind their own lines. No one ever suspected her, while only some fellow Jews and her collaborators knew it, and they were all sacrificed as victims for risking their life for the resistance. She made it almost alone and that is a merit which will stand for all time, and Martha Plimpton under the direction of Richard Bennett has made the performance of her life. Hopefully she will do more.