Kanal (1957)

KANAL begins on the 56th day of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis. A ragtag group of untrained Resistance fighters hold the frontline. They try to live a relatively normal life, and even play the piano. They achieve many small victories, but must retreat into the sewers. But the darkness stretches on forever...

A work of shocking extremes, KANAL depicts the dignity of ordinary people in the face of unspeakable horror. In dark, underground pits, gorgeous women struggle in rivers of sludge. The darkness itself weighs down heavily - but is punctuated by flickering candles and torches that create unforgettable compositions, and by brutal bursts of light from the world above.

KANAL was the second feature film directed by Academy Award- and Cannes Film Festival-winner Andrzej Wajda. It is the second part of Wajda's acclaimed "war trilogy," which also includes A GENERATION and ASHES AND DIAMONDS.

Captures the Subterranean Component of the Foredoomed and Betrayed Warsaw Uprising

I first saw Wajda's classic film while visiting Poland decades ago. Intended for an informed Polish audience, it doesn't provide much historical context. For this reason, I include an introduction for the benefit of the non-Polish viewer.

As the Red Army was about the drive the Germans out of Poland, the Polish Underground (AK) came out in open warfare against the Germans (Operation Burza, or Tempest). The AK seized several cities from the Germans in eastern Poland prior to the arrival of Soviet troops.

But Poland had already been betrayed by Churchill and Roosevelt in the events leading up to and including Teheran. The Soviets had no interest in respecting Polish sovereignty and feared no consequences for violating the same. No sooner had the eastern Polish cities been freed than the AK was disarmed and its leaders either shot by the NKVD or shipped to Siberian concentration camps.

Then came Warsaw's turn--only much worse. The Red Army was on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The Uprising was launched, intended for a three-day fight. It turned into a 63-day agony. The Red Army stood fast...and stood...and stood. It wouldn't move again for six months. The Soviets wanted the Germans to complete the dirty work of destroying the flower of Polish resistance.

The use of sewers for transport of goods and people had been pioneered and developed some 16 months earlier during the Polish Underground's assistance to the Jewish Ghetto Uprising. During the Polish uprising, as sections of Warsaw fell to the vastly more powerful German forces, the only way out was through the sewers. Wajda's dramatic film captures the drama of the evacuation of Polish fighters and civilians through the sewers of Warsaw. The evacuees not only had to contend with sewage and sewer gasses, but also German booby traps. One scene shows the disarming of a trap consisting of a wired network of German "potato masher" grenades.

The taking of POWs by Germans needs clarification. At first, during the Uprising, captured soldiers and civilians were summarily killed. Tens of thousands of unarmed Polish civilians were systematically murdered by the Germans at Wola alone. But then the Germans promised to spare civilians and to afford POW status to the captured combatants. This was no sudden discovery of humanitarianism towards the Slavic untermenschen. The Germans realized that the Poles would never surrender as long as their deaths were inevitable in any case. Also the Germans, realizing that they would likely lose the war, wanted to set a precedent of captured guerillas being afforded POW status in the event of future German guerilla warfare. Finally, there was the specter of postwar war-crimes trials, and the belated need for good German behavior.

Nevertheless, the foregoing considerations didn't stop the Germans from burning and blowing up Warsaw's historic buildings after the Uprising. The Red Army waited outside Warsaw for another three months after the surrender of the Uprising to give the Germans ample time to do this. Scarcely any habitable buildings in Warsaw remained.
August 9, 2007

possibly greatest war film ever

I think Andrzej Wajda is overrated (personally, I think Kazimierz Kutz is the best among contemporary Polish directors), but for my money this is the best war film ever made. Perhaps the reason is that the camera work was done by Kutz (spelled "Kuc" in the credits), as (at least according to the story I've heard) Wajda was too delicate to actually go down in the sewers (yes, the excrement spattered on the faces of the actors is real; those are real sewers). The despair portrayed as each of these young people moves toward his or her inevitable death is relentless (though the film almost never depicts the actual moment of death), and the fact that we are told in the very first moments of the film what fate awaits them certainly does not spoil the effect. In an era when propagandistic cliches about the Germans were practically de rigueur in Polish cinema, the artistry of the film is demonstrated in one of the final scenes, when a young man emerges from the sewer and is disarmed by a German soldier; the soldier does not scream or behave like a brute, but instead behaves in as calm and civilized a manner as if he were simply taking a prisoner of war in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention. (In fact, according to what I've read about what happened after the Warsaw Uprising was finally crushed, when the Polish soldiers were disarmed they were indeed often treated with respect and sometimes even saluted by the German soldiers.) The final scene is possibly the most chilling of all, as one officer, having endured the ordeal of the journey through the city's sewers but learning that some young fighters have been left behind (and are almost certainly already dead), goes back down into the sewers to find them, pulling the manhole cover back over his head ... July 28, 2006

Bleak, harrowing, depressing, tragic.... dignifying nonetheless

Andrzej Wajda's "Kanal" is a true cinematographic masterpiece both in substance and in form.

In substance, for it tells the truth of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 to the degree perhaps unmatched before and since. If the complexity of the event itself were not enough challenge, Andrzej Wajda tells this story in an unambiguous opposition to the official "truth" as maintained by the communist authorities then in power. And this is what impresses me most. For we must remember that Wajda created this film in 1956/1957 in Poland under the communist rule and Soviet domination. Although by then the worst of the Stalinist excesses were the matter of past and Poland - briefly - enjoyed considerable liberalization and ease of censorship, the essence of the political system with its Party control of all aspects of public life was still very much intact.

And the official interpretation of the Warsaw Uprising was anything but positive. This was the subject best left in complete silence as non-event. Obviously, it could not have been erased from the collective memory; the ruins of Warsaw, the tens of thousands of dead (more than a quarter million Varsovians perished to be exact), and those who survived were all too conscious witnesses to the harrowing tragedy that occurred just twelve years prior. But to censure, criticize, condemn, to denounce, and to deplore - yes, they very much could do it. And they did. According to the official interpretation, thus, the Home Army was not the largest and bravest underground resistance movement of patriots fighting the Nazi occupiers. They were Nazi collaborators, they were anti-socialist fanatics and renegades hostile to the Red Army, Soviet Union and everything that was deemed progressive and just. The invectives and persecutions went on. The Home Army resistance fighters were "the enemies of the people".

Andrzej Wajda portrays the soldiers of the Home Army as normal people, "just like us", who had their dreams, wanted to live their lives in peace, longed for love and fun... But they were also patriots, they were courageous and they fought for the right cause. They failed and Wajda also shows why. Not bluntly - that was impossible - he uses metaphors and symbols. But he leaves no doubt what was the Polish predicament. One of the final scenes is very telling: two of the soldiers, Caravel and Daisy, separated from the rest of the group, after long trek trough the sewers finally reach the end of the tunnel. They can see the river and the other bank where freedom (and the Red Army) awaits them... only to realize that the exit is barred. There is no freedom at the end. This episode is a metaphor for the whole Polish experience during World War II. After being "liberated" from the bloody German oppression, Poland has fallen to the Soviet domination.

"Kanal" is equally a masterpiece in form. Nothing is overplayed, the actors play in a very controlled, yet natural way, tempo of the film is consistent, photography very realistic, light contrasting exactly the way it must have been in reality, the music adequately illustrative.

While praising the film for its mastery, I cannot say the same about the disc itself. Poor picture and sound transfer, as if the publisher was unaware of the technological achievements of the last decade and on top of that practically no additional features. This film virtually screams for the director's commentary and interviews with other, still alive, creators of the film. Without it much of the symbolism may be lost on the American viewer not necessarily well versed in the history of contemporary Poland. For these reasons, I think, the Criterion's box-set edition of all three War classics (also "Generation" and "Ashes and Diamonds") would be likely a better choice.
September 7, 2005

Striking Film

Kanal focuses on a small group of Polish resistance fighters during the Warsaw uprising of 1944. Intended to last for a few days and to enable the Soviet Army to enter Warsaw, the uprising lasted for weeks while the Red Army did little to assist the Poles and was eventually crushed by the Germans. This film is based on an actual episode of the uprising, the escape from encirclement of a significant number of resistance fighters by fleeing through the sewers of Warsaw. Wajda follows a company of fighters into the sewers and explores their disparate fates. In Wajda's hands, this episode becomes a metaphor for the whole Polish experience in WWII; brutal, valiant, deadly, profoundly humiliating but characterized by an unceasing pursuit of hope. With fine cinematography and excellent acting, this is a gripping film. August 30, 2004

One of the giants war films in any age!

Kanal is a grim , sad and powerful drama of Polish patriots who use the servers of Warsaw in an attempt to escape from the Nazis during the uprising of 1944 .
In the middle of this unbeatable tragedy you can watch different voices and attitudes . The somber pianist playing Chopin , and other characters literally struggled for this opressive atmosphere . Wajda made his masterpiece , unrelieved in intensity and fierce .
A thousand carats gem . Disturbing and haunting work of the polish cinema . August 20, 2004

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