Popiól i diament (1958)'s comments

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Siskoid

I'm interested in realities and contexts I know nothing about, even if a lot of the details are going to go over my head. Such is the case with Ashes and Diamonds, set in Poland during Germany's withdrawal and a Communist regime starting to move in. The politics and history are somewhat out of my reach, but it's Poland at a crossroads, about to choose its destiny. A mirror to that is the main character Maciek, a freedom fighter who can choose further violence, or love/peace. A choice between ashes and diamonds. Or perhaps he has little say in the matter, which doesn't bode well for Poland. Either way, while there are a lot of conveniences to expose his guilt and create a moral context for his choice (why does he keep stumbling on victims of his war crimes?), his reactions are quite correct, and on the whole, the acting is strong enough to ignore the melodramatic tropes. What I mostly admire about the film, though, is it cinematography and richness of detail. There are all sorts of moments, big and small, that I don't feel I've seen before, and which can only come from astute observation/experience (whether by the director or the source novel's writer).

3 years 11 months ago

thedamnone

I see the problem you have with encoding, the last letter of the first word is http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0142/index.htm

this one

12 years 8 months ago

dombrewer

I don't know a great deal beyond the basic facts of what happened at the end of WWII in Poland and this film doesn't help much - it's a politically confusing, extremely talky and rather dramatically uninteresting film (cocky resistance fighter falls in lust with a barmaid and discovers a conscience)- although a good looking one with some striking B&W imagery. This is my third Andrzej Wajda film, and I've come to the conclusion I don't like his films very much - he seems to want to be a serious artist exploring the plight of his homeland while fighting the urge to make action movies - the result is a lack of subtlety. The acting is frequently melodramatic, the screenplay's overblown - spoiler

. It's hailed as a classic on all sides, but for me it's dated and failed to keep me interested.

11 years 8 months ago