The Last Witness

Being an Englishman who has been living in Poland for the last 16 years I was interested to see this joint Polish-Anglo production and it is definitely worth it for those viewers who are interested in this period of history just after the end of World War II.

The film, based on a true story, covers the British and American cover up of the Katyn massacre in 1940 by the Russian NKVD of around 22,000 Poles from the intelligentsia, military, church i.e. the country's elite. The victims were shot in the back of the head and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest, to be discovered a year later by German forces who were building a road thru the forest. In efforts to maintain the Russian commitment to defeating the Nazis, the massacre was blamed on the Germans.

Alex Pettyfer is very convincing in the role of Stephen Underwood, the young journalist who sets out to discover the mystery of why so many Polish soldiers are committing suicide in his area of Bristol. This is a mission that is of no interest to his editor (Michael Gambon) and he meets several obstacles along the way in his quest to find out the truth.

He is assisted in his quest by his lover, Jeanette Mitchell (Talulah Riley) who gives a good (but a times a little stilted ) performance and his efforts are being monitored by the British, headed by Mason Mitchell (Jeanette's homosexual husband played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes, who also puts in a convincing performance). The witness is played by the well-known actor, Robert Wieckiewicz, and his role is at the crux of the film's plot.

So, all in all a definite recommendation to see this film. Piotr Szkopiak (born to Polish parents in London - they were deported from Poland in 1939), who is both the film's director and co-writer, looks like a promising young director to watch out for.

I was so happy to have learned about this. I had no idea. It was a very crucial time at the end of the war but it should have never been covered up and those two men lost their lives just trying to tell the truth. It's amazing the number of lives that were lost for no really reason. Hitler and the Soviets were evil.

Throughout the Cold War, one of the great untold truths of World War II was Russian responsibility for the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other "prisoners of war" in the Katyn forest. If Britain and the United States had tried to bring the Russians to justice, they believed it would have jeopardized the peace and revealed the real nature of Stalin's regime. Instead, both countries did their best to suppress the truth, even to the extent of espionage that included murder. Although this is a fictionalized version of these events, "The Last Witness" is also a realistic view of what journalists can and have done to bring the truth to light. This is a beautifully produced film, and it is difficult to understand what motivates some IMDB reviewers to dismiss it as "sucha a bad film." It is a wonderful and welcome film that follows half a century during which such a film could not have been made. It is also incentive to watch an arguably better film released in 2007 called "Katyn" and directed by Anrzej Wajda.

The Katyn massacre by the Soviets in 1940 remained officially undisclosed until 1990 when Gorbachev admitted it. The unofficial truth was known by the British and American governments during World War II and by the public since the late 1940s. This film follows a journalist's fight to tell the truth to the public and the repercussions of his actions.

Whoever gave this film a 1 must be crazy. Extremely well shot and acted, this is a good film especially if you are interested in the Katyn massacre. An Anglo- Polish production, it is not a Hollywood blockbuster but a very poignant tale told in a non-Hollywood way..I enjoyed it.

Because of the extreme importance of the matter, I am really uncomfortable to saying this movie is quite a misfire. It could have been so much better, it should have been better. Directing and editing are very confusing: you are not allowed to easily understand the settings or the whole post-war background, there's no difference between the fighting age and the reconstruction time. You can't appreciate any shades that suggeste you are in Russia, England or Poland. The whole movie seems to take place in the same few exteriors. The assembly rythm is terrible: the editing is very boring, so slow that loses all the tension and the final suspense (there's none!), some scenes unnecessary. Nor it helps in taking time to get deep in the characterization of the personages: their portraits are very flat, their evolving in the storyline and the following awareness of human monstrosity (in war and politics both) are superficial. Main character is tedious and pale, as well as being not quite an eagle... Because, maybe, the production tried to avoid volgar spectacularization of the massacres, I guess, it eventually ends up to minimize the real tragedy: the movie turns out to depersonalize victims of Katyn, merely corps, lack of scenes, lack of details... so wrong! The acting is also quite poor and Michael Gambon's performance is completely wasted in two minor scenes...somebody would ask please why in hell he accepted this part...again: bad final editing, quite sure, and not such a good screenplay. Pretty enough are the cinematography and the original soundtracks. Good basic plot, shaking movie structure and timing. In the end, all these aspects stop you to have any kind of "transfert" or to reach a deep empathy that the movie should have inspired. Its greatest fault is the lack of passion and heart: the claim and the reckoning of one of the worst slaughters in the 20th century, I feel, should have been shouted and screamed loudly like a running train to the truth, instead you hear just a whisper. You would have liked to be moved instead of simply Learning an excruciating truth....but, sometimes, could it be enough?