I live in Poland, I saw most of Wajda's movies and still I don't get why everyone thinks that he is such great director when I find pretty much all his movies poorly narrated and not easy to fully understand "Kanal" is good example of my problem with Wajda's movies - he recreates images from his own past that he knows well and don't bother that the viewer may know less than he is, f.e.
1. all the young rebels were scouts or just children from Warsaw, but there were few officers and we don't know if they were soldiers or just seniors scouts
2. they were receiving orders to defend this part of the city but we don't know from who, we don't know if the HQ knew their situation, etc
3. there is no any sight of Germans except for a tank and mobile machines at the beginning, but there is no explanation why those machines were dangerous or what number of Germans were attacking this part of the town, how big was that part of town
4. they were trying to move to Srodmiescie (district of Warsaw), but we don't know how far was it, we don't know what situation was there
5. how many people went down the canals, how many did survived, how long where they going to Srodmiescie (2 hours, 5 hours, 10 days??)
And in other Wajda's movies is same routine - lack of narration that leads to confusion or misunderstanding the true historical situation... I know Polish history pretty well (since I learned it at school) and since I have such problem I can only imagine how foreigners must feel when they watch his movies.
1. all the young rebels were scouts or just children from Warsaw, but there were few officers and we don't know if they were soldiers or just seniors scouts
2. they were receiving orders to defend this part of the city but we don't know from who, we don't know if the HQ knew their situation, etc
3. there is no any sight of Germans except for a tank and mobile machines at the beginning, but there is no explanation why those machines were dangerous or what number of Germans were attacking this part of the town, how big was that part of town
4. they were trying to move to Srodmiescie (district of Warsaw), but we don't know how far was it, we don't know what situation was there
5. how many people went down the canals, how many did survived, how long where they going to Srodmiescie (2 hours, 5 hours, 10 days??)
And in other Wajda's movies is same routine - lack of narration that leads to confusion or misunderstanding the true historical situation... I know Polish history pretty well (since I learned it at school) and since I have such problem I can only imagine how foreigners must feel when they watch his movies.