Strecke zwischen Tod und Leben

I saw "Droga na Zachod" (The Road to the West) quite recently on Polish TV. I was somewhat attracted by the plot and participation of some famous actors, so I decided to give it a try and liked it very much. I am a person who does not get emotionally involved in wars in which I did not participate, so I watched the film with some distance. But that's why my perception of the film may be different than the creators intended and how the audience perceived the film 65 years ago. The plot is about an old railroad worker (Kazimierz Opalinski) and his assistant (Wladyslaw Kowalski) guiding a train loaded with explosives to the Western front. Even the main characters are unusual because you have an old retiree with a developed sense of duty and professional ethics and a young intellectual who would rather be a witness than a participant in events. The film is devoid of any visible ideology, and we observe the events as if from a distance. " The Road to the West" was shot only 15 years after the war, so the now outdated infrastructure gives the story an authentic feel. And it all takes place among the beautifully photographed winter landscape. So we meet the remnants of the German army, Soviet soldiers, Polish soldiers, a German deserter, looters, and almost empty of any population ghost town. The battle scenes are good, and the usage of popular actors for supporting characters (Ryszard Pietruski, Adam Pawlikowski) reminds you how fragile human life is. The whole thing looked to me a bit like a painting of a scene between the acts of a play. That is why " The Road to the West" is a film that I am going to remember.