An Exercise In Nonsense

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's 1944 in the last days of the Warsaw uprising. Lieutenant Zadra commands a company of desperate freedom fighters. They have inferior weapons facing overwhelming German forces. They are soon surrounded by the Germans and ordered to retreat into the sewers. They find themselves cut off and stuck in the dark tunnels.The above ground fighting has certain moments. I didn't know that the Germans were using armored remote control vehicles. There are some action and one tank. It has lots of devastated landscape. There are a few too many main characters. Once the movie goes underground, it goes in a small maze. It's confining but not that intense.

Probably my contribution to this film is an unfair one, since I'm writing from a feeling that comes back to my memory when I see the title "Kanal" all of a sudden and some flashes appeared in my mind of that sensational film.I should see it again and study my reaction NOW, a totally different person from that young adult that I was when I saw this picture.I can recall leaving the movie theater when the film ended with a devastating sense of doom not only because of the total blackness of the movie but specially by its ending, absolutely crashing, morally and physically.Of course Hollywood would have never done such a dark movie and the feminine character would have walked thru the sewer system in some designer clothes, fully made up and coiffed to death, happily singing Che sara, sara --or Who's Sarah?-- (Doris Day as the protagonist? 1957 right?).I honestly believe that I never saw a most depressing movie in my whole life. Maybe "Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini" (Sublime!!) but color photography helped to take it out of that terrible sense of doom we get from the black and white "Kanal".A MASTERPIECE, no doubt, but you must be in the right mood to watch it without getting dangerously depressed.

With the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw in the summer of 1944 the Poles in the city rose up against the Nazi occupiers . Men , women and children took part in it as they waited for the Soviet liberators . Unfortunately the Red Army doesn't do liberation and Joe Stalin didn't recognise any difference between Nazi stormtroopers and Polish nationalist so the Red Army sat outside the gates waiting for one side to beat the other so that there'd be no resistance for them entering he Warsaw capital . The number of Nazi dead was counted in thousands , the Polish dead in hundreds of thousands . It was a testimony to Polish courage and Soviet cynicism Andrzej Wajda's KANAL tells part of the story . Certainly the Polish courage is well represented . It wasn't just the Polish underground resistance army who took part in the uprising . So did intellectuals , old men , woman and children and this film represents the diverse cross pattern . Armed only with small arms they fought off battle hardened SS divisions who had aircraft , tanks and heavy artillery . What the film sadly doesn't mention is the role the Soviets played by stabbing the Poles in the back . It's understandable when communist Poland was still under Soviet influence . Nikita Khruschev had started his " de-Stalinism " program but such a change was like replacing Nazism with fascism so while there was some benefits to this new regime it doesn't stop the downside of the fundamentalist dictatorship That said Wajda has made a classic European film . I remembered it from 20 years ago and when I tracked it down I wasn't disappointed by it . It's a mix of styles with the scenes above ground mirroring the Italian Neo-Realist movement with the scenes set under the eponymous sewers ( Kanal being Polish for sewer ) being inspired by German Expressionism . The characters are people you can believe in from Lt Zadra the courageous patriot in charge of the company to Daisy , a morally ambiguous ( A prostitute ? ) woman . The director doesn't make the mistake like many film makers of showing what a sewer is . More often than not they're just a cosy film set . Not here . It's a sanitation system full of faeces and urine and dangerous gases and the characters have to crawl through it . This reality combined with a haunting mood muzak by Jan Krenz makes KANAL a riveting film There are a couple of flaws to it however . The lack of any mention to the Soviets is forgivable as it's understandable . What isn't so forgivable is that the time frame is rather confusing . Many of the characters succumb to madness but considering they've fought off the Nazis for 56 days would a few hours in the sewers cause something Nazi shells were incapable of ? It's never stated how Daisy would know the layout of the sewer system and if she's so important why not let her lead the party . There's also an unlikely need for characters to spout existentialist dialogue at unlikely times . There's also the irritating lack of consistency where matches not working in one scene only to have them working a few scenes later and characters telling their comrades not to shout in case the Germans hear them only to have the same characters shout in the following scene These are minor flaws despite being noticeable . KANAL is a film that will stay with you and scenes will burn themselves in to the memory such as a soldier asking a young , pretty woman lying on a stretcher if she's unwell only to see the blanket fall away revealing her right leg has been amputated above the knee . You'll also be able to remember long after seeing it who gets killed in what order . This might mean it doesn't have the same impact upon repeated viewing but it's a film everyone should see at least once

I think everyone who saw this film knows that it's a masterpiece, but maybe not everyone knows how authentic the film is. The writer of the screenplay - Jerzy Stefan Stawinski - is in fact the Lieutenant Zadra responsible for his platoon. Stawinski wrote down his own war experiences here with impressing honesty.Another thing that may be interesting in this film is the main female character - Daisy. She isn't supposed to be a superwoman as some suggested. In fact there were several thousands of women fighting in this uprising. All of them that survived it were given the status of soldiers by Germans. It was the first time in the world's history when women received such a status. During the uprising many of them were carrying mail via sewers, so Daisy is rather a typical character in this role. It would be more surprising if the guide was a man.