Pokolenie

"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."

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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.)

"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.

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.

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.