La Bataille de Varsovie

Slow, boring, predictable, messy, long. It was a great subject to have made a much interesting and historic film than this shamble where we have singing, dancing, humour, war, terrible acting, all in one.

Don't waste your time....

I was so interested in watching this and to see the polish perspective of these events and how Poland more or less looked like back than. Sadly this was not presented in a believable way, everything looked new, it appeared to be some kind of costume show, hard to describe. They also behaved kind of modern, but enough about that. The cinematography was a joke, I have no idea why there was so much focus on Natasza Urbanska, all that singing didn't make much sense to me nor did it contribute to the story. It seemed very overacted, as if every actor was a theatre actor and not a movie actor. Additionally the music was total out of place most of the time, often scenes appeared to be comedic because of the music and that was not intended.

'The Battle of Warsaw 1920' is one of those European films that ends up so (relatively) expensive that the filmmakers can only look at the world's best producer of big-budget blockbusters for inspiration. Sadly that ends up being the Americans.

Which is not to say that big-budget American films are all bad, but somehow foreign blockbusters seem to always learn the wrong lessons from them, and end up as Roland Emmerich movies. Like other foreign films I've seen (Chinese ones are especially guilty of this) Battle of Warsaw has several of the old Emmerich characteristics: fractured plotlines with multiple characters and side plots, crowd-pleasing, chest-thumping patriotic ambitions, goofy humor amidst what should be tragic. In this case I did enjoy it all more than I really care to admit, despite many absurd flaws. It's one of those movies where, if you enter with the right mindset, it will keep you grinning throughout.

Despite that there are two fatal flaws to this film and they come down to narrative and tone. The 'main' story is the romance between Polish officer Jan and cabaret singer Ola. During the post-WW1 Russian encroachment into Europe (sound familiar?) Poland was always going to be the focal point of conflict, so the military sends Jan, along with a large Polish troop and on the exact day of his wedding, to back up the Ukrainians and hopefully keep the Russians out. Jan himself seems to have a certain, semi-ironic sympathy for socialism, which quickly gets him into deep trouble with his commanding officers. Then the invading Russian forces attack...

A naive soldier becoming disillusioned with Soviet ideology while his new wife in Warsaw is led to believe he's a traitor---this is actually the core of a really great story, but the movie has too many other things going on. Jozef Pilsudki, the real-life leader of Poland at the time, is played by Daniel Olbrychski in many poorly connected scenes that are meant to add historical and tactical context to the battles shown in the movie, but are too fractured to succeed. These code breaker guys get a good amount of screen time. There are a lot of cabaret dance scenes and a bizarre subplot involving a lecherous older officer. Ola ends up joining the army with a bunch of other women. The different factions of Ukrainians, Cossacks, and Russians become a little hard to keep track of after a while. The movie is trying to do too much, cover too much ground, and as a result just shoots itself in the foot.

The second issue I mentioned was tone, and this one is the real doozy. The entire first half of the film, despite treating devastating historical events, plays like an absurd comedy. When it's satirizing Soviet revolutionaries this works: Adam Ferency gives a scenery-chewing performance as the vile ex-Cheka officer Bukowski, adding to the film a lot of color which evaporates once he's gone. (Similarly to R Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket). The scene where the Soviets pull unwilling peasants aside to form a liberated 'Revolutionary Committee' has a humorous irony, and the occasional cut to Vladimir Lenin expounding grandiose plans to take over all of Europe is a real hoot. The crudeness of the Russian invading force is accurately realized overall (by many accounts they really did just pull their pants down and take dumps in the corners of whatever building they were staying in) but this film is not supposed to be a comedy, even a dark one. There's a rape scene that's rightly portrayed as something horrific, but when it's followed up with another comic Bukowski sequence and then culminates in a sick punchline, the tonal whiplash starts to derail the film. The second half of the film nearly drops the comedy entirely in favor of frenetic battle sequences, which are gory and brutal when you can tell what's happening. There are some nice touches, but these scenes are too disconnected from the main story to work.

Maybe what makes this movie the most disappointing is the pedigree behind it. Several decades previously director Jerzy Hoffman had made the greatest Polish epic film of all time: Potop, or the Deluge. That film is renowned for its story (from Nobel Prize-winner Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel) and an iconic duel scene rightly considered one of the best in film. There is a duel scene here as well, but it's almost a parody due to the rapid cutting and shaky camera. These noxious techniques carry over into the battle scenes; cinematographer Slawomir Idziak had already collaborated with Ridley Scott at this point and that might be why the patented Scott action style intrudes into the film. Idziak himself is actually one of the best DPs to ever lens a film, as evidenced by his work with Zanussi and Kieslowski at least, but the overall look of this film is over-saturated to the point of unreality. He still manages to conjure up some phenomenal shots using his usual play on contrasting colors and lighting, but they're always interspersed with others that look cheap or fake. Maybe since this the first Polish film shot with 3D cameras there were some unforeseen technical issues that led to this.

Oh, I really wanted to like this! Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.

I have so many issues with this film. I assumed Jan (Borys Szyc) to be the film's hero, but he was absent for such a long time during the movie. I then aimed my attention at his wife, Ola (Natasza Urbanska), who was a far better prospect as the film's protagonist, but a bit unexplored.

Jan went to the war on his wedding day; while his wife was still in her wedding dress. We then follow Jan's journey from soldier to being accused of treason and sentenced to death. Luckily, he is saved by an invasion from the Bolsheviks, and his journey continued.

Ola in the meantime joins the army, as well, when she learns Jan is still alive. The film could have been so much better, but there was so much talk and so little action. The (few) action sequences were well made, but by no means impressive. I've seen many war movies and these battle scenes were not all that special. The film's colour grading also wasn't always great. Some scenes looked like they were entirely computer generated. Some looked like the camera had a filter over the lens. (Maybe this is due to the fact the film was shot for 3D. Apparently they used a Fusion Camera System, which shot in stereoscopic 3D. I suppose it looked much better in 3D, but I watched it in 2D).

One of the biggest issues I had with the film, was the score. Usually epic battle scenes have sweeping music, but with 'Battle of Warsaw' the score was almost too lively - like music you expect at a fair or circus. It completely clashed with the action on screen and made the battle scenes felt comical. Speaking of comical, moments during the attack scenes were actually funny - and I don't think it was intended to be! Tension could have been enhanced with a better score.

Ola was my favourite character, but even she was a bit unexplored. She had the potential to be a far more interesting character - like Rachel from 'Black Book' for instance.

Ultimately, the film fell flat on an emotional level. It simply was not effective enough as the love story they obviously wanted it to be. Note that it is still a reasonably good film one can enjoy, and it does have a feel-good ending.

The movie plays out like a bad "Winnie The Poo" episode - but with a lot of fireworks.

There are some great performers here; a beautiful woman, handsome hero; and great, colorful costumes, horses, and all the spiel that comes with making a big-budget-movie. However, as it usually is the case with Polish cinema, the movie (as a whole) falls short. It falls short unable to decide whether it wants to be a slapstick comedy or a serious, patriotic war hymn.

The cinematography is great. Natasza Urbanska is beautiful, graceful, and not a bad actress either. But the first half of the movie is very choppy, with the action moving back-and-forth between several threads in a matter which fell short from challenging me to really care about the characters or the story.

Some of the scenes, or rather dialogues, are overtly infantile even for a Winnie The Poo episode - ruining the whole movie.

The 3D effects in some scenes are phenomenal, and in others are extremely poor.

Michael Malak - Polish-American