‘Ashes & Diamonds’ (1958) - Andrzej Wadja.

Not having previously seen any of acclaimed, academy award-winning filmmaker, Andrzej Wadja’s earlier works, I watched his iconic, ground-breaking WW2 masterpiece ‘Ashes & Diamonds’ (1958) with especially avid interest. Sometimes it can be considerably more rewarding to simply jump into an unfamiliar classic totally blind. In the specific case of, Andrzej Wadja’s astonishing ‘Ashes & Diamonds’ my cinematic curiosity was richly rewarded with a profoundly moving viewing experience of uncommon depth, passion, and dazzling originality. 

This potently expressed, dramatically oblique film deals frankly with the unprecedented emotional/political schism brought on by the chaotic aftermath of WW2. The inevitably tumultuous internecine squabbling during the disordered reclamation of a disenfranchised, war-ravaged, politically fractured nation is starkly realised. ‘Ashes & Diamonds’ provides grimly unsettling fare, the raven dark narrative is deliberately and fascinatingly discombobulating. There are no trite answers, the actions of the vividly drawn protagonists are often hard to digest, their motivations obscure, impenetrable, no less confounding than our own petty intrigues.

The immaculately written, miraculously layered script by novelist, Jerzy Andrzejewski is an extraordinary dramatic achievement in of itself! The stark, expressionistic visuals by gifted DP, Jerzy Wójcik creates a bold series of elegiac images that all too uncomfortably capture the unimaginable horrors borne of an all too recent war. The febrile performance by, Zbigniew Hubert Cybulski as quixotic, machine-gun brandishing rebel, Maciek Chelmicki remains wholly undiminished. His explosive, oscillatory nature vibrantly expresses the shattering, multifarious insanity of having survived the innumerable brutalities of WW2. The debilitating existential conflict borne from, Chelmicki’s burgeoning, unexpectedly intimate relationship with disarmingly beautiful waitress, Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska)becomes no less combative. This appealing, charmingly ingenuous waitress works at the fateful hotel ‘Metropol’ wherein this expressly dark, unpredictable, morally complex story simmers unsettlingly to boiling point.  

‘Ashes & Diamonds’ has an explosive, engagingly literate screenplay, and sublime, no less incendiary performances from a notably exceptional cast. The fact that, Wadja's powerful story remains such a visceral, compellingly visual experience is no small testament to the exemplary film’s continued mystique. Not since unsuspectedly viewing ‘La bete’ in a packed rep cinema has a film’s vibrant mise-en-scene enthralled me with such extraordinary temerity.