Now in his 80s, Andrzej Wajda has always been, and remains one of the leading lights in Polish cinema and the quality of this, his latest film reflects his many years of experience.
Collaboration with other masters of their craft such as the award winning cinematographer Pawel Edelman (The Pianist) really gives this deeply affecting epic its edge. Controversial in its politics, this is the film that Poland as a nation had been waiting for after years of denial.
The little known, outside of Poland at least, massacre of 15000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest in 1940 was always blamed on the Nazis when in reality Russia was the perpetrator with Stalin giving orders for the slaughter to his secret police.
This had always been denied by the Russians for many, many years, until an official admission in 1990. Authentic diaries and letters were used when developing the screenplay.
Wajda’s father was a victim of the massacre when the director was 14 and perhaps because of his personal experiences, Wajda concentrates as much on the impact on the wives and children that these many deaths caused, as he does the horror of the massacre itself.
