Paysage après la bataille

"Landscape After Battle": This excellent Polish film was shown in its home country in 1970 (but only released in the United States in 1978 by New Yorker Films), one of an impressive resume by the Academy Award-winning director Andrzej Wajda, who was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, an honor that was well-deserved, highlighted by among other great films such as "Man of Iron" (1981) and "Katyn" (2007). Several of the previous reviewers said that Wajda's talent can only be appreciated if you are Polish; NOT true! Instead, his work shows how mainstream European films are, by and large, head and shoulders among contemporary American output.

"Landscape After Battle" begins on the snowy day a Nazi concentration camp is liberated by American troops in 1945. Personally, I found the use of Antonio Vivaldi's "Winter" movement from "The Four Seasons" to be a stroke of genius; it never would have occurred to me to utilize it within the score, and it works in the scene! Also, bravo to Mr. Wajda for actually filming winter scenes in winter . . . proved by seeing the actors' breath while filming outdoors! It strikes me that he didn't much go in for fake stuff, which American directors don't seem much bothered about.

The plot is simple: a sarcastic prisoner, Tadeusz (brilliantly portrayed by Daniel Olbrychski, cynical in the style of the late James Dean), whose passions are books and writing poetry, begins a tentative relationship with a mysterious girl (Stanislawa Celinska), first seen at a huge outdoor mass celebrated by visiting church hierarchy. The script is multi-layered with statements about Poland's national pride, its fervent Catholicism (90-plus % of the population professes to be practicing believers), the unwillingness to forgive, and fear of Communism, and the supporting cast is populated by a varied assortment of interesting characters. The protagonist, Tadeusz, prides himself on being an outsider, and there is not a false note in Olbrychski's performance; it is difficult to not take your eyes off him. Supporting in a moving portrayal is actor Zygmunt Malanowicz, who made an impressive debut as the young hitchhiker, catalytic in provoking the strained marriage in Roman Polanski's first feature, "Knife in the Water" (Oscar nominee, Best Foreign Language Film, 1963). Malanowicz plays the young priest with a sense of intense sadness, especially regarding the degrading parading of a German thief (female) in front of her mob of accusers, and in the final scene with Tadeusz at film's end, describing an atrocity he witnessed first-hand in the camp. In my opinion, Malanowicz is among the best of Poland's acting community, and this performance is first-rate.

The exquisite color photography by Zygmunt Samosiuk is masterfully beautiful, some of the best I've ever seen in cinema, particularly the beginning winter frolic by the freed prisoners, and the conversation among the striking colors of the autumn woods between the young couple. Samosiuk makes great use of the countryside's natural beauty . . . even something as commonplace as the wheat fields. Many of the shots are breathtaking. Also, the use of hand-held cameras to derive a sense of spontaneity and intimacy at certain points is very effective.

The film is controversial and upsetting but, considering the facts on which it is based, these attributes work in Wajda's favor. One is supposed to be shaken and there are lasting impressions left. I would highly recommend "Landscape After Battle" as a must-see experience for serious audiences who appreciate important European filmmaking.

All songs are about love. All songs are about this hidden treasure. But this movie won't save us too.

And, of course, have been changed during translation on one Ukrainian channel. On repeat the beginning is not the same that have been during translation.

But the movie is still the same that is been around. Like in 1970. Like now.

A moey zhenoy nakormili tolpu.

And my wife has been fed to the crowd.

The opening scenes are pure cinematic ballet as the War prisoners celebrate their freedom from the German camps with the arrival of the Americans. The story then bogs down as we follow one of the prisoners, Taeusz, (Olbrychski), a poet who has emotionally cut himself off from the mayhem around him by dwelling into books and food. The Americans decide to keep the Polish prisoners caged until they know what to do with them. Nina enters the camp and edges Taeusz on to open his eyes but he refuses to take any risks. Only later does he become aware but by this stage it is too late. There are important topics brought up here via Taeusz but never in any cinematic brilliance. Instead we get a lot of talk and the occasional visual brilliance but not enough to keep the viewer interested.

"Landscape after a battle" opens with escaping prisoners over a snowy field full of fences - in rather funny movements accompanied by Vivaldis Four Seasons. A touching opening. But we soon enough learn to know these prisoners as a mob, and when they (also treated humouristic) burry a man alive, the protagonist stops for a moment, but is soon more engaged in finding books from the turndowned camp than caring about his neighbour.

The rest of the film is set in an American camp from where the prisoners are not released, in some kind of semi freedom, semi camp. A perfect set for a study of war criminality, American camps, Polish nationalism, Catholisism, grief and human misery in general.

Film makes an important turn. In comes women, and with them film changes light, colour and temper. At the same time it turns out that these prisoners were slaves in Holocaust. I think a main underlying political theme of the film must mankind's treatments of Jews under and after the world war, and not only the Nazi exterminations, but mankind letting it happen - and even forcing them out of Europe after the war. On an emotional level the film is about grief and the problem with letting grief come, how environment makes grief difficult, and how difficult it can be to share grief for people with different experiences.

But the film is a carpet of underlying contradictions,humour, irony and sudden beauty. A couple of times during the film a gypsy prisoner plays on an harp, an emotional tune brutally rejected (filmatically speaking) by the protagonist. That example picks up an important essence of the film's style and theme. When it comes to humour its very comic how the protagonist constantly looses and finds back his glasses, in crowds, in hay stacks etc.

Its not hard to understand Spielberg's respect of Wajda when you see this film. The great treatment of light can be compared with Spielberg on his best. The Grunwald intermezzo speaks for itself. Narrativly it only brings the film out of the camp, but filmatically it brings the film to dream and eternity with profound beauty. Anyhow, there is also another scene I can't let go without comment. Its the Christian Supper. Undoubtly ironical, but simultaneously deeply religious we see the transsubstantiation moment, everybody falling on their knees, while the protagonist is saved from isolation by the priest to serve as a comic altar boy. His bells are mocking the scene, but also gives it emotion and love. When Nina gets her bread, sun light falls upon her and bells ring spheric, its the peak moment of the film.

Main actors are excellent in their roles. Olbrychski as the perfect Wajda protagonist - the doubting reflecting mind, unable to put all the aspects of his mind and emotion into life. Beautiful Celinska is with great body acting debuting in a character unable to express all her inner in her proud movements.

Those who try to describe everything, often are unable to take nothing in consideration. This is what Wajda manages. His films are either very moving, deep or beautifully shot, but pays attention to life's and society's particularity. A moment of joy for one, is the moment of irony for a second, the moment of grief for the third, a moment of nothing for the fourth.

There is at least two reasons to pay attention to Wajdas films of this period. First is the remarkable free expression of deep political impact. This country was the first to overthrow communism twenty years later. Second is the development of a filmatic and narrative language that Kusturica has rose to grandeur.

In Landscape after the Battle, Andrzej Wajda in the second era of his filmmaking career, depicts emotional and psychological confusion in a former Nazi-prison in Poland, freed immediately after the WWII.

A hand-held camera explores a lot of extreme close-ups and vivid colors. The end credit as graffiti on flanks of freight train cars symbolically concludes the film. The soundtrack is great, except Vivaldi, which sounds tacky in pop-art fashion, in the opening sequence.