La croisade maudite

First of all I have to confess that the version I saw was a dubbed German version and this probably helps the film because Lionel Stander best known for his role in HART TO HART is probably the last person in the world you'd employ to portray a former crusader turned monk in 13th century Europe taking the confessions of young teens on the Children's Crusade . Not being up on German accents this gives the film a uniformity that one suspects might be missing in the original English language version

The second point was I had no knowledge whatsoever as to what I expecting . I had vaguely heard on the 13th Century children's crusade that apparently ended in complete disaster but most historians consider this crusade to be a complete work of fiction . I had of course heard of Andrzej Wajda and KANAL remains one of my favourite pieces of European cinema but being a Pole one might prejudge Wajda of being someone who's going to take a genuine ecclesiastical and portray it as historical and spiritual fact . If nothing else it's a warning to never prejudge anyone or anything because this isn't what takes place

Bare in mind this is a totally unknown film . As an IMDb junkie I'd never heard of it and to my knowledge it's never been broadcast on British network television and long before the end titles appear you know why this is . At the centre of the story is a pederast Count Ludovic who has been manipulating two of the key characters to his own ends , namely to satisfy his own sexual desires . We don't get any explicit scenes of child rape but even so it does make for a rather disturbing film which even for 1968 when the Hays Code was becoming increasingly redundant sail very close to the wind

At the heart of the story is a subtext that everyone should be aware of false prophets of whatever philosophical persuasion . Some people will of course view this film as a critique of religion , that all religions are based on myth and legends and this is a film for secular humanists . Indeed it is but one can also view it as a critique on the secular religion of communism where humanity's faith on a doctrine that conditions the concept of greed out of human beings is no less true that a Bronze Age Palestinian Jew being crucified for our sins is . It's notable that two apes follow he Crusade on its travels and perhaps the point is that only human evolution can save humanity for itself

Jerzy Andrzejewski was the author of ' Ashes and Diamonds ' arguably Wajda's best film, adapted from the novel. The novel is justly considered a Polish masterpiece and the film is good, but this film, known as ' Gates to Paradise ' a novel written by Andrzejewski was too complex to bring to the screen, especially as Wajda himself considered the film a failure. The fact that the film deals with homosexuality was probably too distasteful for him to handle was probably the cause of it being a total failure. He must have known that Andrzejewski was a great writer and that in the book the subject matter was written experimentally in one long sentence, followed by a short sentence afterwards, and needed an equal experimental approach, and that the homosexuality was treated with a great deal of beauty. Instead of approaching it with understanding he made a clumsily flat film, without empathy or passion and cast it with actors that looked and acted very badly, due no doubt to his ham fisted direction. In colour and crudely dubbed it is a disaster that betrayed the author's intentions entirely. Polish film has no great record on portraying homosexuality and Wajda, knowing he was incapable of doing the book justice should have left it alone. As for the cast Ferdy Mayne was miscast as the so-called ' predator ' and he was out of his depth, missing out on the romantic aspects of the relationship with the youth he has had a relationship with. It should be re-filmed by a braver director and it would be an achievement for a Polish director to film it in Polish with Polish actors who thankfully understand their roles instead of making them one-dimensional puppets. It deserves its cinematic oblivion.