Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
For my first foray into the career of Polish director Andrzej Wajda, I’m starting at the end. Not at the end of his career, as he would be a presence on the international film stage even into the ’80s, but more because I’m starting at the end of a trilogy. Wajda’s films A Generation in 1955 and Kanał in 1957 preceded Ashes and Diamonds as commentaries on the effects World War II had on Poland, and all three have appeared together in an early Criterion box set that is now out of print. But Ashes and Diamonds seems to be the most acclaimed of these three films, so it seemed like a good place to start. The film certainly feels like a continuation of something, as there’s an impeccable amount of craft behind it, which managed to slip in some anti-communist sympathies despite being filmed in communist Poland.
Ashes and Diamonds quite dramatically takes place over the course of the last day and night of World War II – May 8, 1945. Our opening scene sees two members of the anti-Communist underground, the coolly spectacled Maciek (played by Zbigniew Cybulski) and the more uptight Andzrej (Adam Pawlikowski), who are waiting out at a country church for someone to arrive. That someone happens to be two innocent workers who drive by the church and are mowed down with machine guns by Maciek and Andzrej. We then learn that they killed the wrong people after they flee the scene of the crime, and we’re introduced to their actual intended target, Konrad Sczuka, the secretary of the Polish Communist Party.
Maciek and Andzrej are then tasked with continuing to carry out their mission to assassinate Sczuka, and the rest of the film more or less takes place all at the same location: a hotel and restaurant that Sczuka is staying at. While at the restaurant, they ponder their post-War futures along with their comrade Drewnowski, who gets way too drunk. But then again, so do many of the bar’s patrons, considering the celebratory nature of the night. Yet for all the gaiety surrounding the night, there’s also a considerable uneasiness in the air, with the Soviet Army patrolling the streets.
At a certain point, Maciek starts to become flirtatious with Krystina (Ewa Krzyżewska), the bartender working at the hotel, and the two of them become closer and closer as the night rolls on. This causes Maciek to question whether this allegiance to the underground is really worth it and if there are other things that life has to offer than rebellious duty. However, when Sczuka must leave the hotel to pick up his son from jail (who has also joined the underground), Maciek is presented with an opportunity to carry out his mission, and thus is forced to decide whether he’s still committed to the cause.
Ashes and Diamonds is based on a 1948 novel of the same name by Jerzy Andrzejewski, and from what I’ve read, the book supported the post-war Communist form of government in Poland much more than the film does. Wajda instead makes the anti-communist rebels much more the focal point of the film, and while I wouldn’t say it presents them as all-out heroes, there is a certain degree of admiration and empathy the film seems to have for their cause. Conversely, I wouldn’t say the film depicts the Polish secretary Sczuka as an all-out villain, as the film presents him more as a man going about his business and hoping to restore his country, even if he seems to be oblivious to who has been following him.
Since the film isn’t narrowly defined in its politics or messaging, what sticks out to me is how Ashes and Diamonds presents these characters as human beings just trying to figure things out after years of unspeakable tragedy. Many of the characters sit around projecting their hopes for a post-war future, with the most compelling of them being the assassin-turned-romantic Maciek. It’s in Zbigniew Cybulski’s performance as this character that you get something resembling iconic, as his dark sunglasses, slicked-back hair, and carefree attitude have garnered the actor comparisons to James Dean, not to mention the fact that he also died young.
I came to Ashes and Diamonds partly because I’ve always known it to be one of Martin Scorsese’s favorites, which is both a little surprising, but I can also see flashes of it here and there. The film contains some gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, which works well for these characters basking in the uncertainty of the moment. It also has a look and feel that is fairly specific to this period in European cinema, when the camera was a little more fixed and penetrating, right before the French New Wave came along and threw out the rulebook. Which makes for a film that perhaps didn’t surprise me all that much, and yet has such a specific setting and striking visual style that you still don’t quite want the night to end.