User reviews

This was director Andrzej Wajda's first full-length film--and because of that, this stands as an amazing achievement. On the Criterion disk is an interview with Wajda and he credits much of the film's success to the cameraman and I agree wholeheartedly that this is one of the best looking black and white films I have ever seen.

The film concerns a young man during the Nazi occupation of Poland. In the beginning, he's a bit of a jerk but eventually gets a job and shows great responsibility. Later, he is welcomed into the partisans and it is an interesting look into this seldom talked about period of history.

The film gets a score of 8. It would have had a higher score had the film been more honest--as it portrays the Communists as being THE resistance and those partisans wanting a return to the democratic system as being greedy bourgeoisie. However, on the Criterion DVD, Wajda talks about how this was one of the required changes the Soviet-dominated Polish government mandated before they'd allow his film to be shown. So, considering the sensibilities of the time, it's not surprising that a little misrepresentation occurs. Still, it's a near-great film and a wonderful addition to KANAL. Wajda's 3rd film, ASHES AND DIAMONDS, unfortunately is a big disappointment to me and is considered the third in this trilogy about life in Poland during WWII.

There is one MINOR mistake in the film. At one point, the hero is hit in the head and is bleeding. Later in the same scene, there is no head wound!

I really enjoyed this movie. It tells the story of three young men who join the Polish Resistance to fight the Germans in the Second World War. The interesting aspect of the movie is the exploration of the motivations of each of the men in deciding to fight the Germans. These men do not appear to all be motivated by patriotism but rather a variety of different motivations. The main character seems to be motivated by his attraction to the female leader of the Communist resistance, while the character played by Roman Polanski seems to be involved because he is looking for excitement. Finally, the Jasio character does not seem to have any idea why he is involved at all.

This is a very gritty and realistic movie, which was apparently made to celebrate the anniversary of the Communist Party in Poland. It is interesting how the director, Andrzej Wajda, didn't quite make the movie which the Party had hoped he would make.

On the DVD edition I watched there was an extended interview with Andrzej Wajda which is also very worthwhile. He explains how he did not really know what he was doing when he made A Generation and that the final product was not really what he had been asked to make. After some delay the Party did agree to release the movie.

"A Generation" (Polish, 1954): This is the first of a war trilogy by Andrzej Wajda. Photographed in rich black & white, "A Generation" is about the youth of Poland, who joined underground rebellions against the Nazis. They formed small "cells" (sound familiar?) of fighters, used pseudonyms, and seldom met with larger groups – for the sake of secrecy and safety. The photography is wonderful (the long opening scene is alone worth the price of admission), the acting is great to average (with a TEENAGED Roman Polanski in one of the supporting roles!), and the dialog gives insight into kids who must grow up overnight and become not merely premature adults, but calculating killers. Made less than a decade after the war, this film depicts the serious, accurate, and even on extremely rare occasion, lighthearted moments that made up their lives. "Kanal" (1957), and "Ashes & Diamonds" (1958) follow.

Let me first say that I enjoyed the film. It's a little sloppy and the performances are inconsistent. But it looks great. And as far as debuts are concerned, this is definitely a solid effort. Not to mention it's kind of worth watching this film just to see a young Roman Polanski.

What is so striking to me about this film is the irony of history: I believe that not only we (living in the 21st century) are able to understand this now, but that viewers of this film in 1955 Poland would have recognized as well. By 1955 Poland was stuck behind the Iron Curtain, held hostage by communist rule. Not unlike the Czechs (and their great communist satires), all art and media was mediated by the communist government. To see these young Poles attempt to improve their country by overthrowing the Nazi party with communism is ironic and ultimately tragic.

Although this film may appear to some as communist propaganda, I see this film as a tongue-in-cheek allegory about the meaninglessness of war, and the complication of those attempting to end the war with another flawed ideology. Not a great film, but certainly interesting, especially when considering the historical context in which it was made.

The Polish film Pokolenie (1955) was shown in the U.S. with the title "A Generation." It was directed by Andrzej Wajda. (A Generation was Wajda's first directorial effort, and the first of his three World War II films.)

The movie stars Urszula Modrzynska as Dorota--a resistance leader who recruits students to join the resistance during the German occupation of Poland. Stach Mazur (Tadeusz Lomnicki) is a young man who answers the call to resist the occupying army.

Even at this stage of his career, Wadja had talent, and many of the scenes in the movie are memorable. However, some of the plot elements were clearly added to please the censors, because Poland was under Soviet rule by 1955. For example, the movie puts forth Communism as the only form of Polish resistance. Of course, Communists were in the resistance, but so were non-Communists. Ringing speeches about how Poland will be happy and free under Communism are painful to watch, given what we know now. (And, of course, given what Wadja knew in 1955.)

Still, Wadja got this brave and important movie past the censors, and presented us with a film that is definitely worth seeing.

We saw this movie at the marvelous Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester. It was shown as part of a Wadja retrospective. It's not a great film, but it's a very good film. It's worth seeing on it's own merits, and definitely worth seeing if you have watched--or plan to watch--Ashes & Diamonds and Kanal. (The other two movies in the World War II trilogy.)

Hard not to view this film with the benefit of hindsight when - for example - the final image, of faces almost tangibly seeing the light of a new tomorrow, is apparently so straightforwardly propagandistic; scenes such as that in which the older workman talks reverently about the promise of Karl Marx now seem at best quaint. That's probably not an entirely fair prism through which to consider the film, but the theme of anti-Nazi resistance obviously becomes less stirring when one considers the limitations of what's being put forward as the alternative. Furthermore, although the movie's gritty, shadowy pace generally makes for entertaining viewing, there's a fairly consistent series of images which seem to push too hard - the heart-shaped photo slot at the fair through which we watch as she steps away from him; the Hitchcock-like fall through the well of the spiral staircase. The movie's pace and concentrated immersion in its time and place makes it engrossing, and the earnestness and deprivation are still touching, but it's surely no longer the viewing experience it once was.

The movie that made Andrzej Wajda famous depicts a group of people in Poland's resistance during WWII. In one scene, the movie's protagonist Stach (Tadeusz Łomnicki) learns about Marxism from another man. It's clear that this speech is directed not only at the Nazi occupation, but also at the Soviet occupation. A scene towards the end of "Pokolenie" ("A Generation" in English) reminded me of Agnieszka Holland's "In Darkness", which was recently a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.

As for what I thought of Andrzej Wajda's feature debut. I earlier saw Wajda's "Popiół i diament" ("Ashes and Diamonds" in English). From what I understand about the themes that Wajda depicted in that one, it sounded like what we might call the perfect Polish movie. "A Generation" is also really good, although I did find "Ashes and Diamonds" to be a little better. In an interview, Wajda noted that the title refers to his generation: the leaders of Poland's pre-war film industry had fled the country, and so his generation was essentially starting it from scratch.

All in all, a very good movie. Watch for a young Roman Polanski as one of Stach's compatriots.

'Pokolenie' certainly has some interest for being Andrzej Wajda's first feature film, and for showing the heroism of the Polish resistance fighting their Nazi occupiers. It also shows some of the young director's filmmaking skills, with interesting compositions and narration which give it a highly personal feel, particularly at the beginning. However, because Poland was under the subjugation of the Soviet Union when it was made, Wajda was forced to depict the resistance as being communist led, when the reality was the USSR was another enemy to Poland, having invaded from the east just weeks after Hitler had from the west, and committed their own horrifying atrocities. The combination of these recurring references to the Party and an overall tone which seems light and off for most of the film makes it simply average, which is unfortunate. There are some really nice visual moments - the expressions on the faces of the Polish citizens as they stand in front of their hanged compatriots, the chase and fall through the spiral staircase, and the photo booth with the giant heart all come to mind, among others - but it's tough to overcome the constraints Wajda was operating under. This seems to be a case where the occasionally great visuals exceed any deep emotional impact we feel, which seems wrong given the magnitude of the historical moment.

It is a fine film of Andrzej Wajda's first work even though he would go on as a trilogy. Kanal (1957) is the one many find the best but the last one is, Ashes and Diamonds (1958) that is most known in this country and I certainly loved it back in the day. The first one is very good but just a little confusing with so many different characters at first but then gets going and really good amongst the ruins of German-occupied Warsaw. The youths, including Polanski for some reason in shorts, become adults moving from petty crime and on to the Resistance and involvement with the communist party and maybe some love.

If you have read some of the other reviews, you already have a fair idea of what this is about. Considering the miserable legacy left behind, Marxism is not something that I can consider a positive development. And the growing self-righteousness of the anti-Nazi Marxists is typical of an increasing number of Americans who seem to think that we need to try the Marxist ideas yet again.

The acting in this film is really pretty terrible. All the time I was watching A Generation, I kept thinking I was watching a movie from the 1920s. The story line is flimsy, there is almost no character development, and frankly, I felt as if this was a piece of Soviet propaganda. I'll watch two more Wajda movies, but I'm hoping they will be a marked improvement.

"A GENERATION is about awakening, our protagonist Stach (Lomnicki), a young apprentice of a furniture shop in Warsaw, gets politicized and involved in an underground communist resistance movement fighting Germans, witnesses war-time cruelty at first hand and experiencing camaraderie, romantic tingling and loss in quick succession, everything is fugacious and the growing pains never relent, the final juxtaposition of Stach's tearful face and the smiles of a bunch of fresh-faced new recruits is pregnant with poignancy."

-

Young Tadeusz Lomnicki lives in a Warsaw slum during the German occupation. He's involved in a lot of petty thievery with his friends (Zbigniew Cybulski, star of "Ashes and Diamonds"), until one of them is killed trying to steal coal from a moving train. Lomnicki gets a position as an apprentice at a furniture factory, and is eventually introduced to members of the Communist resistance.

Andrzej Wajda's film debut is the first in his trilogy of films about the Polish resistance. It's easiest the least of the three, which is not to say that this is at all a bad film, but more that his skill rose exponentially through the remaining films. This one is very clearly influenced by Italian neorealism and is a lot less plot driven than the other two. A very young Roman Polanski shows up as a member of Lomnicki's resistance cell.

The Nazis were evil. It's tragic if the Poles rallied their subversive efforts around an even more-murderous ideology. I'd like to think this particular slant was chosen so the film-makers could slide the flim by their commie overlords of the 50s, and not b/c anybody 10 years into the commie occupation could possibly believe Marxism had anything to offer them. Still, if you can get by that point, it's an interesting story about the Polish underground as acted out by teenagers, for the most part. TCM should change its synopsis of this movie: ''A young man loves a resistance fighter in WWII Poland." That barely qualifies as a red herring.

At the height of the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1942, this tells us a story of war with a slightly different slant. It takes up the cudgels of the youth whose innocence was well and truly stripped away by their oppressors and illustrates just how tough it was to grow up in any sort of a natural fashion when guns were everywhere and freedom-fighting the order of the day. That is exemplified here by "Stach" (Tadeusz Lomnicki). He grew up in the Warsaw equivalent of a shanty town, with his mother, and learned to live on a combination of wits and strength. He falls in with some communist resistance fighters at work and that's where he meets "Dorota" (Urszula Modrzynska) whom he begins a relationship with whilst perils mount outside. The killing of an officer by his close friend "Jacek" (Ryszard Kostas) makes matters much more intense and with their enemy now firmly focussed on the group, it becomes even more dangerous and lonely for an increasingly angry and frustrated 'Stach". Andrzej Wajda manages to use the tightly knit cast here to create a drama that's entirely plausible of a society struggling to retain any semblance of it's freedoms and principles in the face of an overwhelming and hostile government. He uses the character of "Stach" cleverly to contrast his vulnerability and, at times even childishness, with his courage and his desires. This also shows us a bit of the enemy of any enemy is my friend philopsohy as people with little in common find themselves (temporarily) allied to combat a common foe safe in the knowledge that each are the other's next foe down the line in due course. Like most of the best films to depict events of WWII, this uses the ordinariness of the people to fight it's corner well. Decent people who were not trained killers, indeed here they are barely out of school, yet they adapt to the wreckage of their city; reduced to huddling in corners or ruins or sewers that are darkly lit and photographed as if these very sets were terrified. This is a tough watch and it tests humanity in many of it's guises as it depicts a sort of hope from hopelessness - but without any danger of rose covered cottages, or cherry pie endings.

When a young man stealing some coal from the Germans in occupied 1942 Warsaw is shot, his friend and protagonist Stach become involved with the communist resistance whilst working in a furniture factory. Through his new connections he also meets and falls in love with fellow resistance fighter Dorota.

Andrzej Wajda's first feature and the first part of his famous wartime trilogy (Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds follow). It's grimy black and white photography is impressive and whilst the quality of performances varies considerably, the lead, Tadeusz Lomnicki has presence and carries the film well. There are some excellent and tense action including a terrific chase sequence. Well worth catching.

A really obnoxious piece of Soviet propaganda from an otherwise brilliant director. I had high expectations for this film, having seen the truly amazing "Canal", but it was really painful to watch.