It is the first day of peace, yet the devastating traces of World War II are visible at every turn, most profoundly in human souls and destinies. Maciej Chełmicki, a member of the Home Army, who, like many of his young peers, was determined to lay down his life for his country in an unequal struggle against the Germans, is tasked on this very day with eliminating a communist leader. One of Andrzej Wajda’s early masterpieces, whose centenary we will soon celebrate, is masterfully constructed around the classical unity of time, place, and action. In the lead role shone Zbigniew Cybulski (1927–1967), a dazzling acting comet whose nickname, “the Polish James Dean,” captured only a fraction of the extraordinary charisma and expressive depth of this seminal figure in Polish cinema.
Andrzej Wajda (1926 – 2016) has devoted a substantial portion of his work to contemplating the fate of Poland. After debuting with "A Generation" (1954), he immortalized the Home Army resistance in "Kanał" (1956), "Ashes and Diamonds" (1958), and "The Ring with the Crowned Eagle" (1992). He looked at the beginnings of the war in "Speed" (1959) and "Chronicle of Love Affairs" (1985), and then at the postwar trauma of released Polish prisoners in "Landscape after Battle" (1970). In 2007 he returned to the war in "Katyń". "Wałęsa. Man of Hope" (2014), completes a trilogy begun in 1977 with a disillusioning portrait of a labor icon, "Man of Marble", followed four years later with the loose continuation "Man of Iron".
