Ashes and Diamonds

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski,Adam Pawlikowski, Bogumił Kobiela
Poland 103’, 1958, black and white
Polish with Turkish subtitles

This filmis the extraordinary final installment in Wajda’s war trilogy and an unquestionable masterpiece, a true landmark of postwar European cinema. With a screenplay by Jerzy Andrzejewski, based on his novel, the film is set on the last day of the war and the first day of peace, when a young Home Army soldier (Zbigniew Cybulski, in his most famous role) is assigned to assassinate a Communist official. More important than the carefully etched political nuances in this vision of a Poland poised between past and a future defined by its postwar regime are the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in a time of transition, always treated with great humanity by Wajda. Cybulski’s way-cool performance – complete with dark shades, match cocked between his teeth and easy banter with the ladies – earned him the title, the “James Dean of Poland.”