Despite the fact it’s based on a book from the ’40s, and set on the last day of the Second World War, the hero of Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds is, like the movie, a product of the 1950s. He’s an anti-hero, in actuality: cynical, jaded and nihilistic. He smiles quite a lot, but it’s a smile that says ‘Isn’t it funny how meaningless it all is?’ He is played by Zbigniew Cybulski, one of Poland’s most famous actors and about the closest thing the country had to James Dean. The similarity is not accidental: Wajda and Cybulski were influenced by Dean and Brando and the sneering youth of ‘50s American cinema.
Cybulski plays Maciek, an assassin for the Polish Resistance. He seldom takes off his sunglasses. He killed Nazis before the war ended and seamlessly makes the transition to killing Communists. One tyranny is replaced by another,...
Cybulski plays Maciek, an assassin for the Polish Resistance. He seldom takes off his sunglasses. He killed Nazis before the war ended and seamlessly makes the transition to killing Communists. One tyranny is replaced by another,...
- 10/25/2011
- by Adam Whyte
- Obsessed with Film
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