Varsóvia 44

Jan Komasa's "Warsaw 44" is an audacious and impressive, genre-blending pop-cultural epic war or, as some might put it, anti-war motion picture that hits the nail on the head with unusual and daring vision from an unknown director from Poland.

The story is as simple as it gets. It's just before the summer of 1944 in occupied Warsaw, Poland. Nazi's are retreating slowly leaving the eastern front behind. The Second World War is coming to its end and clearly new order is about to be established. Poland, which had suffered numerous tragic blows of fate in its history, finally has a chance to prove its right for independence.

Stefan (fresh, unobvious and heavy on delicate retro 40's charm Jozef Pawlowski) is the only breadwinner after he lost his father at the beginning of the war. In order to make it and get by with his grief stricken mother and younger brother Jas Stefan unlike his peers is away from getting involved into polish resistance rebellion preparing for the uprising against German occupation. It takes an unfortunate event for Stefan to be forced to join the underground polish Home Army where he meets his old friends and a girl – Alicja (brilliant Zofia Wichlacz). Stefan keeps his new engagement secret from his troubled mother. And then one day surprisingly to everybody involved there comes an order to start the uprising, which is meant to last three days but eventually will lead to a bloody apocalypse.

From the beginning of the movie we experience a visual orgy of different genres mixed together dipped in a salsa gravy of brutal and bloody scenes provocatively shot in a very colorful and even at times fairy-like manner with a little bit of ironical kitsch unlike a typical war cinema has made us to expect. Komasa insanely puts young actors on an emotional roller coaster where things resemble a nightmarish Klimov's "Come and see" crossed with a Disney fairy tale juxtaposing a slo-mo of bullets circling around the kissing lovers with the downpour of blood and guts in one of the most gruesome scenes to be shown in cinema. The way of storytelling makes us follow the characters but surprisingly not because of their psychology, which seems as simple in construction as it gets concerning the fact that we watch people in the middle of unleashed hell where they can only escape or take cover occasionally shoot a bullet at an invisible German enemy. At first you would like to have characters which are more proactive but then - hey! It's war, not another Rambo movie. The characters are tools or goggles through which a viewer can experience the simulation of the world, which does not pretend to be Warsaw from 1944 either. It's more of a dreamy creation, a fantasy, phantom all coming from the director's mind bravely composed with uneasy feeling of disappointment, as if helmer writer wanted to express his doubt whether we would ever let it go and just live together not minding differences in this Babel world.

Whoever is seeking realism, regular narrative war movie and psychologically twisting drama would feel disappointment watching "Warsaw 44" since it's a rare, provocative, ambitious and original gem, a super budget experiment on one of the biggest and most horrifying events in XX century, a bloody opera staged before our damned eyes to show us the fire we lit up ourselves once in a while in the name of hatred and self-destruction.

I have been reading up on movies on IMDb for many, many years now, but this is the first review that I have ever written. That is because I have not seen a movie depicting history and what actually happened in 1944 during WWII so accurately and movingly, and with great special effects, ever before (and I have seen quite a few).

It is a touching story, sticks to reality and I think that is what makes the biggest impression on the viewer - THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED to the Polish people, in real life. An absolute must-see of the year and in terms of war movies one of the most significant productions ever made.

The now old people who have survived the Warsaw Uprising, say they have never seen a movie as accurate as MIASTO 44 (= "City 44") - watch their moving opinions on YouTube, if you like.

For example, it shows German soldiers and what they were like, as well as the few men who were sent by the Russians in order to 'help' (yea, not really), but in the end created more havoc than anything, since they were simple men never trained for that big a war inside a city (Warsaw was the most destroyed city in WWII, Manila was 2nd).

I hope this review will be helpful to other people - in my opinion this movie is an absolute must-watch, it should be watched by the whole world so that everyone would finally be informed about WHAT those heroic people went through and had to endure. Polish people have a great spirit and always fight for what's right with great ambition, humor and intelligence. They assume other nations are loyal just like they are themselves, which doesn't and obviously DIDN'T always turn out for the best....

GO SEE THIS AMAZING MOVIE and you won't regret it - even if you don't like war movies, it should satisfy you on many other (deeper) levels :))

11 points out of 10 for the producers! wOw and thanks again for making this movie :)

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.

This is a VERY well made film, and refreshingly so from a production that is not American. The visual effects are amazing and in my opinion do NOT take away from the emotions of the actual story.

I doubt the tragic history of Warsaw has ever been this brutally and realistically portrayed. One of the best WWII movies out there. It has found the balance between using cool and bloody visuals and slow-mo effects without making it so over the top that it becomes a pure action movie.

What makes me give 9 instead of 10 stars is the storyline, which even though great and not too cliché does lack something. I can't really pinpoint what it is.

But overall, this is a brilliant historical drama!

do you know this feeling when a film is touching you inside, changes something in you, makes you wanna scream ? i guess this one is one of them

i will not tell u much about this film, i never liked to analyze what author wanted to say, what is the message, i wont tell you about the special effect (i guess the best one ever made in any polish production), settings with great detail, great city fight sequences, surprisingly original camera work, no, no I leave all that for experts who know what they say

let me better tell you something that this film changed in me

i read a lot about Warsaw Uprisings (both the Jewish one in Ghetto and Uprising 44 - please Don't MIX THOSE TWO), I watched documentaries, movies, i met some fighters when i was in primary school for some educational talks,

i think i knew ... but i had no idea until i watched this

is this a historic movie ? No really is this a war movie ? I wouldn't say so Love story ? That would be too simple

what is it then you ask ? I guess i will need more time and thoughts to figure it out, what i can tell u now is that it showed me people young people like me, who were faced with unthinkable times, unthinkable evil, and how it transformed them

it is one of those time when a history book fact, some figure, some picture, drags you into it, and leaves your mind damaged, just like it left those people, their city, their dreams

scary