Ashes and Diamonds-1958

Based on Jerzy Andrzejewski’s 1948 novel of the same name, Ashes and Diamonds is the Wajda’s last in the war trilogy, following A Generation and Kanal. Adapted for the screen by Andrzej Wajda and the author time and space have been condensed to less than twenty-four hours in and around a single location—the hotel Monopol. The title comes from a 19th Century poem by Cyprian Norwid ‘…Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond/
The Morning Star of everlasting triumph.
Synopsis
The film takes place in an unnamed small Polish town on the day Germany officially surrendered ending World War II. Maciek and Andrzej have been assigned to liquidate communist Commissar Szczuka but fail in their first attempt, killing instead two civilian cement plant workers. They are given a second chance in the town's leading hotel and banquet hall, Monopol.
Meanwhile, a grand fête is being organized at the hall for a newly appointed minor minister by his assistant, Drewnowski (Bogumil Kobiela) who is in fact a double agent. Maciek manages to get an entry into a room with the desk clerk, who is also a fellow Warsaw native. They sadly reminisce about the past and over the chestnut trees in particular, which were lost when the Germans destroyed most of the city in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising. While Maciek and Andrzej bide their time to strike Szczuka, Maciek becomes infatuated with the hotel's barmaid, Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska).
Meanwhile, Szczuka is attempting to locate his long lost son, Marek who had served along with Maciek and was recently captured by the Red Army.
Maciek goes for a walk with Krystyna and ends up in a bombed-out church. Maciek realizes what he had been missing in life. He could have had an education or settle down to a regular family life every day warmed by love. Strange how love throws a diehard rebel’s train of thoughts askew? Awakened by his brief lovemaking with the barmaid the aridity of his past, a life of the mind is brought to surface. Contrast this with the reality of his guntoting days: two innocents felled down a mistake. This comes to him with a sledge-hammer force by the two victims he sees in the crypt. A mistake. It was all he had to show for his life as a sewer rat during the aborted Warsaw uprising and the present mission.
Maciek's crush on Krystyna grows perhaps as an antidote to the awful realization of his mission: shortly he must assassinate Szczuka.
When he does and as Szczuka falls, it is a dramatic moment and the built up tension in the viewer literally explodes: fireworks celebrating the end of the war fill the sky.
The next morning, Maciek goes to where Andrzej awaits in a truck. From concealment he watches as the other accomplice Drewnowski is exposed. Andrzej throws him to the ground and drives off. When Drewnowski sees Maciek, he calls out to him and Maciek flees only to run into a patrol of Polish soldiers. He is shot. It is pure cinematic moment where the clothesline fluttering in a light breeze a kind of peace, the sweat and bad humor of illtempered men and woman all washed clean. The camera pans slowly to a landscape strewn with trash.
Afterword:No empire or old order however feeble passes away quietly but makes quiet a din. We have in our time seen in the Balkans and it was so when the Ottoman Empire came crashing at the end of WWI. What a trash the new emerging nations make of the fine ‘ideals’ of the old order!
Directed by
Andrzej Wajda
Written by
Jerzy Andrzejewski
Starring
Zbigniew Cybulski,
Ewa Krzyzewska,
Waclaw Zastrzezynski
Running time
110 min.
Language
Polish
Trivia:
The entire film takes place over two days, May 8th and 9th 1945.

One of Martin Scorsese's favorite movies. He showed it to Leonardo DiCaprio while making The Departed (2006), as main characters of these two movies have to deal with the same dilemmas.

The title comes from a 19th century poem by Cyprian Kamil Norwid and references the manner in which diamonds are formed from heat and pressure acting upon coal.

Director 'Andzrej Wajda' realized that his leading man Zbigniew Cybulski would be constrained by period costume so he allowed him to wear clothes that felt more natural to him.

After the film's release, sales of sunglasses shot up because Zbigniew Cybulski wore them consistently throughout the film.

Wajda was particularly influenced by The Asphalt Jungle (1950).

Because of the film's nihilistic tone, the Polish authorities were not keen on it being exhibited outside of the country. Until a low-level official had a print shipped out to the Venice Film Festival where it played to great acclaim.

René Clair was a particular fan of the film.

(ack: imdb,wikipedia,criterion)
Similar Works
Nikto Ne Khotel Umirat (1966, Vytautas Zalakevicius)
A Generation (1954, Andrzej Wajda)
Do Posledney Minuty (1973, Valeriy Isakov)
Human Condition, Part 1: No Greater Love (1958, Masaki Kobayashi)
Vysoky Pereval (1982, Vladimir Denisenko)
Other Related Works
Is related to: Everything for Sale (1968, Andrzej Wajda)
Kanal (1957, Andrzej Wajda)
Foreign Actors (2006, Matthew Noel-Tod)
Andrzej Wajda - a Portrait
Trzecia Czesc Nocy (1971, Andrzej Zulawski)
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