Papa Mike's Video #22: Andrzej Wajda's KANAL (1957)

The first half of Kanal which is above ground in war-tarnished 1944 Warsaw (set almost two months into their uprising), and one helluva tracking shot early on introducing our main characters, is very very good and has its share of brutal moments while setting up some important characters... When it goes into the second half, when this beleaguered platoon goes into a gas-riddled sewer to try to stay alive, it becomes a stunning, harrowingly depicted saga of survival. It overall isn't quite as great, but everything in the sewers can stand on the same level of Ashes and Diamonds. 

Even if you know nothing about WW2 or what Poland's situation was by this point (I frankly know only a little, which is they were struggling to not be completely obliterated by the Germans, even this late into the war), it still packs a steady series of punches to the gut as far as Wajda keeping this graphic, horror-movie level of intensity with his direction of everyone in these tight locations. It's not even about an enemy as a person so much as danger from massive flooding water and the gas. 

Kinda looks like Polish Dean Stockwell a little, no? 

Kanal is a grimy, dark and sorrowful tale that has as its credibility the word of its makers - the writer Stefan Jerzy Stawinski and Wajda fought in the resistance and some/a lot if their experiences are worked into the story. On top of this, the actor Janczar, who plays Jacek (he is an other presence that connects to A Generation), along with several others, convey despair and fear and yet sometimes some slivers of hope very convincingly; watch when Wanda pushes in on the musician who plays the instrument thinking he can get someone else to hear him... Maybe it isn't hope but just a prayer for something else that isn't... What is everything about this hell of a place. 

Matter of fact, the sewers *are* another character, as one can say, as a metaphor for something like a horrible no-good wretched war (or entering any pit of chaos) that seems endless and without anything human. And yet despite this, it's not an unpleasant experience watching Kanal, on the contrary Wajda means to enthrall his audience and it brings everyone in that sewer, usually with their petty squabbles, together. 

But make no mistake: this shit's bleak, like almost Come and See level.