Miasto 44

Wow, just wow! The film's visuals are absolutely stunning! This is a good old-fashioned love story with a very strong vengeance element, as well, amidst the horrors of war. Unlike most war films, though, this one does not concentrate on war gore, but there are quite a few disturbing scenes that will make you shudder. The film has great characters with excellent character development, and the acting was great, too. At times the film's unpredictability will make you jolt in your seat. Jozef Pawlowski makes a credible, determined hero with vengeance burning in his heart. This incredible production is easily one of my favorite war films, if not my favorite. The music was awesome.

This is the movie that can shatter your mind. It squeezes your throat and doesn't let go till the end. You get it under your skin and when you realize that's it's based on facts you're no longer the same. Although it's shot in a very bright and colorful manner, without visual effects achieved by obscure camera work, it's very dark at the same time. This is the story of a very young man Stefan who is responsible for his family after his father's death on the front of the Second World War. He's not interested in any conspiracy, but when he meets a girl whose name is Ala, by whom he's fascinated and then in love, decides to set himself free from his mother's arms and, against his will, he's involved in the Warsaw Uprising. At the beginning there is fun in the war, typical for immature men, and even in the presence of the first death Stefan shows off his bravery in front of the girl. Everything changes suddenly with the first bullet and with some very tragic moment which he has witnessed. Those two things turn him into a walking dead who loses everything and all he wants is vengeance. The director Jan Komasa pulls the spectator into his movie and with no mercy forces him to experience the real cruelty of war. I have never seen in the cinema such brutality in its pure form, exposed in so natural way and not hidden behind convention. The first scene of Saving Private Ryan comes to my mind when I try to compare the presentation of death during battle, and death at all, in this movie. However here we have one big advantage, Mr. Komasa absolutely deprived his movie of any pathos. This film is simply about death and war burning out feelings, dreams and humanity. It's very realistic, but very fresh in its form with great soundtrack and editing, with some symbolic scenes that may be controversial, mostly in Poland, because Warsaw Uprising is the national tragedy here. It's made on a grand scale without compromise, shot in wide perspectives with great designer production. Undoubtedly this is just a great movie. Maybe I'm a little biased, because I regard previous Komasa's film Suicide Room as the best psychological drama I've ever seen, but I'm just a spectator and this is what I want to experience while watching movies – real emotions.

My both parents took an active part in Warsaw Uprising, and growing up in Warsaw I absorbed a whole lot of facts and points of view from the rest of my family, neighbors, books,newspapers, TV, and other movies about the Uprising. For the obvious reason this movie is very personal to me, and for the most part took me really close to the image of the events I've had since my childhood. The love triangle is not too important to me, as it could be replaced with another situation, typical for young people of this age. The battle scenes are extremely gruesome, but seem to be closer to reality than many war movies will show you. My uncle was cut in half by the bomb blast and the family could only bury the body from the waist down. My father was moving through the sewage system, full of stench from dead bodies and rats feasting on the corpses. Once he emerged he was not able to talk at all for several months. My parents were as young and full of life as the characters in the movie, and although love was definitely not a priority back then, the youth and all the things associated was a dominant factor. So this is how this movie talks to me - the youth is such an incredible force, it allows a man to go through Dante's hell.

First a quick in-deep synopsis. This movie is about probably the blackest hour of the history of Poland: it shows the Warsaw Uprising in the summer of 1944. The underground resistance movement after 5 years of Nazi occupation brought an open fight to the streets of capital. They planned for a 2-3 days struggle, but the battle went for 2 months; while the Russians forces driving the Germans back to the III Reich territory stopped at the Vistula river on the other side of the city (not crossing it for another 4 months). But this is not a biographical movie or chronicle account of historic events. The Uprising is (not so merely) a setting for a love triangle between a boy and 2 girls. And that is historically correct: many teens and children took active part in that WW2 battle

A love story in a war environment can very easily turn into a blockbuster soap opera. A movie about the national tragedy can easily turn into an obituary overloaded with shallow patriotic clichés. A well financed war picture can be an empty festival of special effects and explosion. But the "Warsaw '44" (in Poland entitled "City 44") does not. The director / screenwriter Jan Komasa swiftly avoided all of those traps. The viewers may also think that this movie will be boring, because of the slow pasted beginning of the story. But after seeing on the screen the first dropped body and some time later the first fantasy-like kiss scene, this is all but gone: we are fully pulled into this epic war and love story. Also stereotypical mines like "all Polish people are good / heroic and all Germans are evil / cowards" are nicely diffused through the entire picture. Of course the viewers are shown scenes like an execution of civilians by Germans soldiers and accounted for polish medical personnel taking care of wounded Germans; but we also get to see a polish officer pulling his rank to have a free sex with a polish girl, as well we see a German soldier vouching for some Poles in front of a Wehrmacht sweep commando. Viewers are also left with questions like: did the main charter kill a defenseless German soldier or was a mercy shown to him?

The technical level of this picture is at the top. If you like big budget Hollywood films, then this one is for you. Albeit it was made in Europe, there is very little in terms of special effects that could be done better in it. And this movie is like "The Matrix" (1999): in that (aside from the use of bullet time) it probably does not come up with anything new (with the exception the aforementioned kiss scene). But it does combine all of the well know elements (from both action / war genre and the chick flick features) and creates out of them a whole new quality, with attractive visuals and sound effects. For example the putting of a camera on a barrel of a hand held gun you could already see in the "9th Company" (2005); but here it still feels quite fresh and puts you in a middle of that action like when playing a computer game (an attempt that landed quite flat in he same year in the "Doom" movie, based on a eponymous first person shooter). And the confrontation between the two girls is made in such crafted and unexpected fashion, with bitter words painting how a post war existence will most likely look like for one of them, that it is just heartbreaking. And there are many memorable scenes of battle, joy, death and sex; with the most disturbing being the one showing a panic attack in the city's sewer system

As for the music- it plays a vital role. But do not expect a typical symphonic background, an all to epic choruses or some cheap jump scares; because the score is often quite simplistic. The composer Antoni Lazarkiewicz created both pure piano and neo-classical tracks but also a modern fusion of strings, guitars and electronic sounds, matching the screen events. And on top of that they have put various songs into this picture; including among others: a track by The Ink Spots from 1940's, a track from 70's by Czeslaw Niemen and to a much more surprise a piece of dub step. Without giving away the details, that dub step fits perfectly in those visually and emotionally crafted two scenes (kind of like the "All Along The Watchtower" reworked by Bear McCrery, written in 1967 by Bob Dylan, fitted nicely into a season finally of "Battlestar Galactica" s-f series in 2007). So not only is the original score great but also the music supervision deserves a kudos

And for those who say that the presented story is chaotic: you are half right. War (and love) can be a chaotic thing, so the movie simply reflects that. But also how and what we see simply comes out from the given style: the camera always follows one of the three main characters; and as such you do not get to see for example the landing of (very limited number of) regular polish army troops (equipped by the Russians), sent to boost the morale of the ongoing guerrilla fight in the surrounded city. Those troops just kinda show up on the streets one day- as they would for you, if you were a simple resistance movement combatant just doing your thing. But this and others actual events (like a scarce parachute drops made by western Allies, explaining to some point how could possibly the fighters survive for 2 months on scarce supplies) could be more and / or clearer incorporated into the story. It would give some more info to the less historically educated viewers and make "Warsaw '44" also a little longer than just over two hours. And because of that the rating of this great movie is only 10/10, and not 11/10

It's a little stylised in parts but otherwise this Polish production is very well made. It tells the story of a group of young adults who join in the Warsaw uprising of 1944.

Fully expecting it to be a two day, patriotic adventure, with the Russians (allies of their allies) at the outskirts of the city, they attack the Germans with little more than small arms and a few grenades. But.. the Russians didn't advance and, perhaps more importantly, the Germans didn't retreat.

What followed was the absolute destruction of Warsaw, the slaughter of 200,000 of its 900,000 inhabitants and the imprisonment of all but 1,000 of the rest of them.

It's gritty and violent and sometimes even disturbing, but it's also a part of history that needs telling and seeing. Watch it for that reason if nothing else. 7.5/10.