Plus fort que la tempête

A grand epic based on the writings of Henryk Sienkiewicz, The Deluge presents to its audience a gritty world saturated with betrayal and ruin, heroism and patriotism. Outstanding costume design paired with a brilliant cast led to a greatly rich depiction of Slavic aristocracy. Daniel Olbrychski's larger-than-life portrayal of Andrzej Kmicic aptly accomplishes the solemn bearing of a nobleman combined with hints of mania and barbarity.

The story engrosses with its beautiful cinematography, excellent character development, and cultural and historical insights into the Polish nation. The Deluge falls nothing short of monumental.

I'd just like to add that "The Deluge" contained the best battle scenes made for the next 20 years till the movie "Barveheart", but even now they're still impressing. Hoffman managed to do that without any special effects and in the times when Poland was a communistic country and the budget was smaller than the amount of money middle class actors in Hollywood get now paid.

Except the battle scenes, it's impossible to not see the wonderful costumes and decorations. They're not only beautiful, but they create the climate of the 17th century better, than the often artificial decorations in Hollywood movies made for any century.

The film's time is about six hours. To tell the truth, I doubt that the Americans would have made this movie nowadays for less than a 100 mln $. Jerzy Hoffman could have dreamed at the best of that kind of money for his film and still, he made one of the best movies in history of cinema and the best in the history of Polish cinema.

This movie is an epic tale set in the 17th century Poland

were there is a war between the Swedish and the Polish armies. The turning point of this movie is when a Polish general betrays Poland and kills thousands of olish men. This movie had an academy award nomination but didn't win.

The great thing about this movie is the big armies of extras in period gear, and they don't do it just for one big battle but over and over throughout the movie to the point of being gratuitous (in a good way). Way better than CGI of course. Plus the details of weapons, armor, horse riding and locations all look nice. So it's a satisfying exploration of the historical setting.

There are several moments where the development of battles doesn't make sense, and the battles sometimes turn into confused mass melees just like Hollywood depictions. And the cannon practical effects are not very good, but at least they are not as bad as in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The movie is only average at trying to communicate the brutality of hand to hand warfare. Nor does it communicate the severity of the tragedy that befell Poland at this time. It's supposed to be a nationalist story about one of the most terrible episodes of Polish history yet it mostly depicts it like a PG-13 fantasy adventure. There is a little bit of (rather mild) atrocity/brutality but not enough for a 4.5 hour movie and, bizarrely, it is only ever done by Poles.

The main character starts off fairly unlikeable, and while things improve when the plot gets going the slow development is a problem for such a long movie. The only character who stands out as enjoyable is Colonel Zagloba.

There is a confusing moment where a character, last seen alive and well, suddenly turns up wounded and unconscious being pulled on a sled. It's a colossal screwup that the writers apparently couldn't find time to work such a pivotal event into a 4.5 hour movie. Anyway just know before you watch that when the character turns up wounded, it's from an offscreen event and not some sort of flashback or whatever.

Potop( the Deluge, in English) is also a story of betrayal by some of the Nobles of Poland who side with Sweden. It is also one part of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trilogy; the others, also filmed by Hoffman: Pan Wolodyjowski (Colonel Wolodyjowski) and, Ogniem i Mieczem (With Fire and Sword) were released in 1969, and 1999, respectively.

I have been able to find these movies for sale in the US, although they're in Polish, with English subtitles, at Polish import shops, however, I've been unable to find DVDs.

This movie, as well as the other two mentioned, have some violent scenes, but the violence depicted is not unusual for the time period, and such violence was no stranger to Western European counties such as France, Spain and England.

Potop is a very good action flick based on historical events, see it if you can.