A towering monument to the exposure of one of the darkest secrets of the Soviet era, the Katyn massacre of 1940. One of the best films of one of the best directors in the history of cinema
Andrzej Wajda’s blockbuster work on one of most disgraceful atrocities of WWII is as absorbing as it is shocking. The film is a fictional treatment of the groundless massacre of 12,000 members of the Polish officers’ corps by the USSR in the Katyn Forest about twelve miles from Smolensk, Russia. Although USSR was proven to be the perpetrator of the crime when the graves were uncovered a few years later, the world powers failed to intercede with what they knew to be the truth. It was only on the eve of the fall of the USSR in 1989 and 1990 that the secret was released.
As a predecessor to the cold war. The disgrace of Katyn must go down in history as an odd, if not outright abominable, cooperation between the USSR and the western powers. As the course of WWII turned against the Germans, the USSR was able to swing responsibility for the Katyn massacre to them as the mass graves were first revealed in 1943. The mystery that remains is why the West continued to support the lie for decades after the war.
In this period of time the secret of Katyn was well known by virtually the entire Polish population. It was handed down from parent to child, although, of course, it was never taught in history classes. In fact, to so much as utter the Word Katyn was to disappear into the Soviet Gulag forever. So this was not only a crime against the Polish people, it was a continued punishment against the Poles carried out primarily by the USSR with the tacit cooperation of the USA, Great Britain and other western countries.
When Premier Gorbachev admitted that the Stalinist NKVD had murdered Poles at Katyn (in fact, there were some 25,000 Poles buried at the site, as well as untold numbers of Soviet dissidents and intelligentsia), legendary director Andrzej Wajda saw that his chance had come. To even have discussed making such a film as this prior to the late 1990s would have resulted in, at best, the end of the director’s career, and possibly the end of his life. But now the time had come.
Director Andrzej Wajda has directed films in Poland since the 1950s and has been either nominated for or won the greatest film making awards in the world, including an American Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 2000. His films have been applauded and awarded at Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Moscow and awarded by BAFTA, Cesar and other organizations. This film was selected as the Polish entry for the best foreign language film for the 2008 Oscars.
Perhaps most amazing of all, Wajda served as a Polish senator from 1989 to 1991. There is little chance he did not know all there was to know about the Katyn atrocities. His father, Captain Jakub Wajda, was murdered in the NKVD prison of Kharkiv which contributed many of the bodies eventually exhumed from Katyn.
Starring the award winning trio of Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska and Andrzej Chyra, the story revolves around the heartbreaking celebration of two lovers as the USSR senselessly takes thousands of Polish officers as prisoners of war in early WWII. Like the victims of the Nazi holocaust, these officers were loyal to the government and cooperated even though there were no grounds for their imprisonment and Poland had signed a non-aggression pact with both Germany and Russia.
As Anna searches for her husband, one of the captured officers, she is forced to flee to safer locations with upper class family. When the mass graves are first uncovered by the Germans, the identities of the murder victims are revealed and Anna is reborn when her husband’s name is not on the list. But when her husband’s best friend, whose name was on the list of the murdered, returns alive he has a terrible story to tell Anna.
The narrative story of Katyn is a bout the heart rending love, loyalty and self sacrifice that allows loved ones to survive through the sacrifice of those around them. It is a story of betrayal and loyalty and of survival by shear will alone. Finally, it is one of several long overdue monuments to one of the worst travesties of military injustice of the 20th century. This film may be the greatest work by one of the world’s greatest directors, Andrzej Wajda.
Release: Tribeca Film Festival
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