You won't be disappointed!

Brilliant and touching

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Polish film Pokolenie (1955) was shown in the U.S. with the title "A Generation." It was directed by Andrzej Wajda. (A Generation was Wajda's first directorial effort, and the first of his three World War II films.)The movie stars Urszula Modrzynska as Dorota--a resistance leader who recruits students to join the resistance during the German occupation of Poland. Stach Mazur (Tadeusz Lomnicki) is a young man who answers the call to resist the occupying army.Even at this stage of his career, Wadja had talent, and many of the scenes in the movie are memorable. However, some of the plot elements were clearly added to please the censors, because Poland was under Soviet rule by 1955. For example, the movie puts forth Communism as the only form of Polish resistance. Of course, Communists were in the resistance, but so were non-Communists. Ringing speeches about how Poland will be happy and free under Communism are painful to watch, given what we know now. (And, of course, given what Wadja knew in 1955.) Still, Wadja got this brave and important movie past the censors, and presented us with a film that is definitely worth seeing.We saw this movie at the marvelous Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester. It was shown as part of a Wadja retrospective. It's not a great film, but it's a very good film. It's worth seeing on it's own merits, and definitely worth seeing if you have watched--or plan to watch--Ashes & Diamonds and Kanal. (The other two movies in the World War II trilogy.)

This movie opens in Poland in 1942, on the outskirts of Warsaw. The opening scene is impressive, starting with a long view of a poverty stricken area and panning about 180 degrees while slowly zooming in on three boys playing a knife-throwing game. One of these boys is the main character, Starch, who provides a voice-over during the scene. Starch works as an apprentice in a woodworking shop. Very early on the complex political situation is introduced, and that is where things get a little complicated for those not overly familiar with Polish history during the war. One factor to keep in mind is that this film was made during the time that Poland was a Soviet satellite state, so I assume certain restrictions needed to be adhered to in order to get it approved. The so-called "good guys" in this are members of the Soviet backed People's Guard, whose goal was to fight the German occupiers as well as to oppose the Polish resistance movement, a movement loyal to the Polish government in exile. It seems that the Soviets had no desire to see Poland as a free independent state.The political tensions are played out in the woodworking shop. A communist, Sekula, works in the shop. We know where he is coming from when he says to Starch, "You work eight hours for the price of one. There once was a wise bearded man by the name of Karl Marx. He once wrote that workers were paid just barely enough to renew their strength." Starch is naive and aimless, so he is taken in by Sekula and a pretty young female Communist and joins their group. There are also members of the Polish resistance movement in the shop. They are represented here as bad guys. Then there is Jasio who works in the shop. He is conflicted--basically he wants to stay out of it and just do his job, but he is drawn to act. It is interesting that he is the first person in the group to kill a German.The acting is pretty pedestrian. The black and white cinematography is quite good; there are a lot of dark shots with only faces lighted. The overall feel is of film noir.A good part of the movie is played out against the backdrop of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. One outstanding scene has the conspirators talking while at a carnival that is just outside the ghetto walls, with smoke coming from the ghetto in the background. For someone, like myself, who has meager knowledge of Polish history during WWII, this film helps (although I wonder if the glorification of the Communists was exaggerated). I think that I could spend several days researching the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.This is a film for those who bemoan the preponderance of shallow entertainments in contemporary movies.

If you have read some of the other reviews, you already have a fair idea of what this is about. Considering the miserable legacy left behind, Marxism is not something that I can consider a positive development. And the growing self-righteousness of the anti-Nazi Marxists is typical of an increasing number of Americans who seem to think that we need to try the Marxist ideas yet again.The acting in this film is really pretty terrible. All the time I was watching A Generation, I kept thinking I was watching a movie from the 1920s. The story line is flimsy, there is almost no character development, and frankly, I felt as if this was a piece of Soviet propaganda. I'll watch two more Wajda movies, but I'm hoping they will be a marked improvement.

Hard not to view this film with the benefit of hindsight when - for example - the final image, of faces almost tangibly seeing the light of a new tomorrow, is apparently so straightforwardly propagandistic; scenes such as that in which the older workman talks reverently about the promise of Karl Marx now seem at best quaint. That's probably not an entirely fair prism through which to consider the film, but the theme of anti-Nazi resistance obviously becomes less stirring when one considers the limitations of what's being put forward as the alternative. Furthermore, although the movie's gritty, shadowy pace generally makes for entertaining viewing, there's a fairly consistent series of images which seem to push too hard - the heart-shaped photo slot at the fair through which we watch as she steps away from him; the Hitchcock-like fall through the well of the spiral staircase. The movie's pace and concentrated immersion in its time and place makes it engrossing, and the earnestness and deprivation are still touching, but it's surely no longer the viewing experience it once was.