Katyn

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Katyn's opening scene depicts Poland's plight in the first days of WWII: refugees escaping the German invasion from the west approach a bridge where they are met by more refugees fleeing the Russian invasion from the east. Both sets meet in the middle of the bridge and plead with each other to follow them. Where do you go - back or forward? This horrible confusion is the basis for Andrezj Wajda's film.

Adapted from the novel by Andrzej Mularczyk, 'Katyn' depicts a three-day period in 1940 where 15,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and professionals were systematically slaughtered in Katyn Wood, near Smolensk, Russia. Why? To devastate the country and to ensure that it will remain on its knees for the foreseeable future. It was the Germans who discovered the mass graves during their advance on Russia in 1943, and both sides pointed the finger at each other. With the discovery of the concentration camps like Auschwitz towards the end of the war, the blame rested with the Germans. However, in 1990, then president Gorbachev admitted his country's responsibility in the massacre.

However, this massacre takes up only a minor part, but a gut-wrenching and powerful one, of 'Katyn's' running time. Wajda's film humanises the tragedy by focussing on Anna (Ostaszewska), the wife of Andrezj (Zmijewski), an officer in the Polish army. When he disappears on a train heading east, Anna and their daughter are left to speculate on his circumstances, waiting for bulletins where the names of the dead are broadcast by loudspeaker through her town. Because his name is never called out, Anna is left waiting and hoping for news that her husband is alive for years. That is a death in itself, and Wadja's attempt to say that 'it wasn't just the dead that died in Katyn Wood.' Accompanying her story is Roza (Danuta Stenka), the aristocratic wife of a general (Englert), who is forced by the occupying German forces to help convince her people that it was the Russians that committed the atrocity.

Wajda is to be commended for his restraint in dealing with the story - the 83-year-old director lost his father in the atrocity - and although melodrama can sometimes filter through (it's unavoidable given the subject matter), Wajda never allows it to totally overcome the film despite the sombre strings that attempt to dominate every other scene. Where it can be gripping at times, 'Katyn' can also be dull. The pacing is laboured as Wajda skips through the war years (including the massacre) before slowing down to introduce us to the younger generation, the children of those murdered. It's a sometimes-confusing narrative, too, with Wadja seemingly forgetting whose story this actually is. 'Poland's' would be his answer.