Andrzej Wajda’s most celebrated film in the West is a serious thriller about doubt and corruption in a Poland ‘liberated’ by the Soviet Union. It has a cerebral script and a hero with a hipster attitude befitting a window of relative freedom briefly given to Polish filmmakers. Touted as the James Dean of the Eastern Bloc, the dashing Zbigniew Cybulski cuts an image as clean as J.F.K.. But his character, an assassin working for the reactionaries, undergoes a crisis of conscience. The miracle is that the Party censors allowed any doubt as to what our hero’s path should be. Given a stylized, almost expressionist B&w look, Wajda’s masterpiece is an intelligent thinkpiece that lays off the direct propagandizing.
Ashes and Diamonds
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 285
1958 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Popiól I Diament / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 24, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska,...
Ashes and Diamonds
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 285
1958 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Popiól I Diament / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 24, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska,...
- 8/14/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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