Wajda's "Katyń": A Missed Chance

Katyń is a project Andrzej Wajda had in mind for years. It's very personal. Director's father was among the ones murdered in the forest. And then for some 45 years the Polish and Russian governments lied about the genocide, blaming the Nazis.

However, the real story was different. Quoting Wikipedia:

Katyn Forest massacre, was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. Dated March 5, 1940, this official document was then approved (signed) by the entire Soviet Politburo including Joseph Stalin and Beria. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000.

After the breakdown in 1990, the Polish master of cinema was eventually allowed to produce what was dubbed "the film of his life".
I only wish he didn't have to wait so long, as I believe that if the movie was created earlier, it might have been much different and much better than it turned.

There were a few scenes in Katyń that were phenomenal. Like the killing scene in the Katyn forest, or the scene in the Russian prison, or the scene with the older couple getting out of the flat, talking anxiously... But all this came to nothing as the movie together just didn't work. And some of the scenes, especially the ones after the war, felt much like the communist propaganda, but the other way around. Same tricks, same literal message...

Watching Katyń I felt as if the director didn't really want to make a good movie, but rather convince as many souls as possible that the Russians were bad liars and the world should hear the truth.

Yes, perhaps I exaggerate a bit. This is because I was so disappointed by Wajda. I'm Polish. The Poles do have a good knowledge of WWII history. It's still a main topic even in the current politics (the Polish and Russian governments keep arguing all the time whether or not the Katyń Massacre was a genocide; it's still very political). The movie was definitely meant as a history lesson for foreigners and it was even quite well received in countries like England or The United States. In Poland however, the reception was cold. Only some politically correct newspapers gave it good reviews more due to their respect to Wajda and the history than anything else, I believe. But I don't want the movies to teach me history. I have the books for that. And they all say the truth about Katyń nowadays, at least in my country.

What did I want it to be? Well, I guess I just wanted it to keep focus, not try to tell so many stories at the time, and showing all the possible perspectives, but rather focus on the main hero, the soldier, his girlfriend and parents and tell the story of their life, their struggle, pictured in the historic background.

So what's also very irritating in Katyń is the characters. There are too many of them. And I can't see the point! For instance, the scene with the young boy and the girl on the roof... or the woman fighting against the government (after the war) that insisted Katyń was done by Germans... These scenes were too literal, they didn't fit at all in the movie. If Wajda really had to tell those stories, they would have been better when told by some narrator in one minute time, just before the movie ended. Katyń did not make me care about the characters as there were to many of them and their roles were to small. Maybe it would have worked as a mini tv series?

One thing that I have to admit about Katyń is that it did tell a story that has never been told on silver screen. But it's the only reason anyone paid it any attention, I'm afraid. Maybe if the movie was shorter and more focused, and featured good, consistent narration, those couple of amazing scenes wouldn't have been wasted and the movie would have been much more than something to be shown in junior high on the world history class. But it wasn't.

Borys Musielak

P.S. Chris Knipp, who I discussed the movie with via e-mail (some of the paragraphs in this review are taken directly from our conversations) wrote a review of Katyń together with Troell's Everlasting Moments, suggesting they are both nice examples of traditional film making by the old European masters. I haven't seen the recent Troell feature, yet, but as you have probably already noticed, I'm not a fan of the Katyń movie.
Chris said that I probably didn't like the film because of my age. I'm not sure what that has to do about it. Older Wajda movies like Kanal, Ashes and diamonds, Niewinni czarodzieje or Ziemia Obiecana are among the films I rate very high. He also guessed that I probably didn't like it because it was not revolutionary or new in style. Not true. I love Jan Troell! He keeps to his traditional style of story-telling, but he never loses focus. His movies are not as personal as Wajda's so it's easier for him to keep the proportions.