“You can’t change things?” -Krystyna, Ashes and Diamonds
Forging a new nation requires compromises, and yet in the
process of crafting a new national identity nations tell themselves, "This
time things are going to be different: we’re not going to fall into the same
traps as people did in the past". Ashes and Diamonds is about identity and
compromise, nationally for Poland and personally for Home Army Soldier Maciek
Chelmick (Zbigniew Cybulski), a resistance fighter who takes an assignment to
assassinate a Russian official – representative of the new, growing communist
threat from the Soviet Union. The film is set on the closing days of World War
II in a small Polish town celebrating the end of the war with occupying Russian
troops. Everyone in the film claims they are content with themselves, but we
can tell they’re settling for second best. When the Maciek botches the assassination
attempt, he hangs around the town in hopes of getting a second chance to
eliminate his target. While killing time, his eye is drawn to the attractive
and equally uncertain bartender Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska). Maciek falls for
her, and not simply because he’s necessarily in love with her but because she
represents for him a whole life he’s missing out on by being the gun for hire
he is. Maciek contemplates getting out of the resistance life, realizing its
futility, but if he doesn’t finish his assignment it will cost him his life.
There’s no victory here for him. No matter what choice he makes he loses, and
that’s the problem with the dawning of new eras: eventually they end, reality
sets in, and everything is back to square one. Set against the gorgeous black
and white cinematography of Jerzy Wójcik and marked by the coolness of Cybulski’s
James Dean-aura, the fate of Maciek and his country is made all the more devastating
and poignant.
Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment