Event Archive

Sunday, February 5th 2007
Ashes and Diamonds with Monika Braid


Monika Braid leading the discussion ...	chaired by Ian McDonald from BIFS

Sunday morning is not always the most easy of times to get people into the cinema but the Duke Of York's saw a good turn-out for Andrzej Wajda's 1958 classic Ashes and Diamonds which was introduced by our guest speaker Monika Braid as a perfect film. Certainly everyone who turned up to the discussion immensely enjoyed it. Monika is an independent film producer, who works on co-productions between Poland and Britain and has developed and programmed the Polish Film Festival.

Monika led the post-film discussion at the Hare and Hounds by raising various issues important to Ashes and Diamonds. She started by contextualising the film within the Polish history of the time. The film was set after Germany had surrendered from World War II and, while Poland was in many quarters celebrating, for many there was still a war to be fought against Communist rule instituted by the Soviet Union. Monika pointed out the ambiguity in the sympathies of the film and how, at the time, the right wing criticized its humanising of the communist characters and the left wing criticized its sympathy for the Polish underground Home Army.

A key theme of the film is clearly in the dilemma of the charismatic protagonist Maciek, over whether he should remain faithful to his political priciples or take a chance at happiness (through romance with the beautiful Krystyna). Monika asked us whether we thought the film worked as a psychological thriller, a love story or a political story but we decided it worked on all three levels.

Monika identified the importance of the two acting styles used to portray the opposing characters of Maciek and the Communist official Szczuka. In playing Szczuka, actor Waclaw Zastrzezynski adopts a formal, traditional style of acting which contrasts with Cybulski's more striking, realistic style. She also mentioned how some of the low angles were used to imitate the style of propaganda films.

During the discussion, we found some humour in the fact a nearby television was showing the farcical antics of 'Ello, 'Ello which proved ironic considering the post-war tragedy of the film we had just seen.

Many in the discussion were interested in the bold symbolism deployed in the film. Monika surmised that the white horse represented old poland and the polish cavalry, was a symbol of Maciek's forcoming death and his hopes and dreams. Maciek's shrouding within the red and white of a bloodstained sheet may remind us of the Polish flag.

To many, the film descended into a kind of fantasy surrealism as the celebrations within the film become increasingly theatrical and drunken. Also as the characters, in their celebratory revelling, let their guard down, they become more human and subsequently more vulnerable.

Guests from the Polish Cultural Institute

There was a good deal more discussed and some of us were inspired to stay much longer in the pub chatting and drinking within the spirit of Ashes and Diamonds.

Film Notes

Sunday, 25th February 11:00am, Duke Of York's Cinema

The wartime trilogy A Generation, Kanal, and Ashes and Diamonds, made in the late 50s, stands out as young Wajda’s creative genius. A brilliant evocation of some telling moments in the turbulent history of Poland, the trilogy went on to represent the most outstanding work of Andrzej Wajda, one of the most important filmmakers from Eastern Europe.

Ashes and Diamonds (1958) is a political and psychological masterpiece set on the last day of World War II heralding the first day of the Soviet backed Communist regime, a night when the past and present meet. A gripping visual exploration of the times, it examines the moral dilemmas of underground hit man Maciek, as also that of Communist party leader Sczcuka, who Maciek sets out to assassinate. It is this that makes the film a rich experience, the ambiguities reflect the filmmaker’s attempts to understand his own times, a filmmaker who thrived in the irony of learning to dissent in the Lodz Film School of the Communist regime.

Ashes and Diamonds turned Zbigniew Cybulski who played Maciek into an international star. Cybulski embodied a unique Polish sensibility and through him Wajda expressed both his nation’s troubled history as well as individual youthful frustrations. Cybulski’s accidental death in 1967 shattered Wajda who made Everything for Sale as a tribute.