Rebel without a pause

Bet you didn’t know that Poland had its own James Dean. His name was Zbigniew Cybulski, and he was the embodiment of cool in that country until his untimely death in 1967. Perhaps his most memorable film was Ashes and Diamonds, directed by Andrzej Wajda and released in 1958. It’s a work that serves as a seminal masterpiece of the Polish School of filmmaking, capturing the chaotic transition between the end of World War II and the dawn of a new Communist era. The film occurs over a single day – May 8, 1945, VE Day, the date the Nazis surrendered – and follows Maciek Chełmicki (Cybulski), a young Home Army soldier tasked with assassinating a district Communist leader named Szczuka (Wacław Zastrzeżyński). As Maciek grapples with his disillusionment and a blossoming, fleeting romance with a barmaid named Krystyna (Ewa Krzyżewska), he finds himself torn between his duty to a fading resistance and the desperate desire for a normal life.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Ashes and Diamonds, conducted last week, click here.

Ashes and Diamonds stands as a creative triumph for Wajda, who benefited from a more lenient Polish communist regime that instituted a cultural thaw in 1956. Before that year, he wouldn’t have been able to make a film like this – one that was empathetic to the Home Army nationalist underground resistance, which opposed the Soviet-backed Communist Party that was attempting to establish a new socialist order immediately after the end of World War II. But in making this movie, he had to walk a high tightrope, ensuring that he satisfied the communist censors while also not angering the Polish people with a negative depiction of the Home Army faction.

Arguably, the film is fairly evenhanded in its depiction of the characters representing the communists and the Home Army loyalists. Szczuka is presented relatively sympathetically as a tired but pleasant commander who worries about his teenage son, and Maciek is, at least at first, presented as somewhat of an unfeeling sociopath who shoots up the wrong human targets. Both characters have flaws and positive attributes as well as similarities.

This was one of the most acclaimed and popular pictures in Polish film history, making Wajda a world-renowned director. Today, it’s regarded by many critics and scholars as among the finest Polish films ever made and a masterwork of world cinema.

Cybulski completely steals the show as the physically magnetic reluctant assassin, sporting jet black hair and dark shades while oozing coolness, sex appeal, and existential angst. With his performance, we appreciate how conflicted Maciek feels, being pulled in one direction by loyalty to his political cause and in another by dreams of love, normality, and domesticity. “It can be argued that we are not so much with Maciek as with Cybulski, simply because of the greater power of his performance,” wrote Criterion Collection essayist Paul Coates. Interestingly, the director and his lead shared many similarities: They both were in the Home Army and of the same generation and roughly the same age.

By condensing the narrative to one 24-hour period and limiting the setting to one primary location (the hotel), the filmmakers crystallize the characters’ internal conflicts and the ideological schism present within war-tattered Poland. Doing so creates the suggestion that momentous changes can spring from the simple turn of a calendar page, that destinies can alter in the blink of an eye, and that life is filled with cosmic ironies – such as the irony of one conflict ending (World War II) and another just beginning (a near civil war, known as the Polish anti-communist insurrection, which lasted until 1953).

The black-and-white photography – by Jerzy Wójcik, one of the most influential figures in Polish cinema – is stunning, especially night scenes outdoors and high-contrast interior shots that expressively underscore the emotional tensions within certain characters and scenes. With Wajda, he fashions some incredible images, including the visual of the giant inverted crucifix, the lighting of the drinks in the bar, Maciek’s embrace of Szczuka as fireworks explode overhead, Maciek lurking beneath the staircase, the intimate scenes between Maciek and Krystyna, and our protagonist curling up in a dying fetal position on a garbage dump at the conclusion.

Ashes and Diamonds is thematically concerned with the struggle for the soul of a nation. It reenacts a pivotal moment in Poland’s history and a crucial demarcation line, with the end of one conflict – World War II – and the beginning of another – insurrection and resistance to the encroaching communist government. Power politics ironies abound here, considering that one oppressive regime has fallen, only for the country to be in the grip of another oppressive regime. And we witness how easily the pawns on this chessboard fall, creating unique vulnerabilities for the survivors playing this dangerous game. Criterion Collection essayist Daniel Gerould posited: “The final juxtaposed scenes of Ashes and Diamonds raise troubling questions for the future. The two best men—on either side of the ideological conflict—are dead. But the dance of puppets goes on, more menacing to revolutionary ideals than terrorism.”

Maciek and Krystyna are surrogates for many Poles who fought hard against the Nazis and are weary of continued carnage. They want to live normal lives following the war, but are tragically caught in an apparently endless cycle of frustration and futility. The most resonant quote is uttered by the hotel porter: “If only we could celebrate a Warsaw not in ruins.”

Maciek and Szczuka represent two sides of the same coin. They share a history of resisting Nazi oppression. Although they represent opposing political futures for Poland, both men are haunted by the nostalgia of their wartime struggles and a desperate, failing desire to escape the violence of the past. This connection is mirrored through the hotel encounters where Maciek lights the older man's cigarettes, a proximity made even more poignant by the fact that Szczuka’s own son has been arrested for belonging to a resistance group exactly like Maciek’s. At the conclusion, Maciek finally executes the older man, only for the dying Szczuka to fall into his killer’s arms in a final, grim embrace. This "mirror" dynamic highlights the waste of a generation, ending with Maciek’s own agonizing death on a literal scrapheap of history.

The title of the film, which references a 19th-century Polish poet, is insightful, suggesting a dream of diamonds obscured by the reality of ashes. The poet inquires whether the consequences of chaos will be diamonds or ashes. Yet we are repeatedly shown imagery more associated with the latter, from flaming glasses of alcohol and lit cigarettes to bullet-pierced clothing on fire and fireworks in the sky to garbage strewn about a giant ash heap.

Similar works

• The Cranes Are Flying (1957, Mikhail Kalatozov), which employs dynamic, handheld camera work and a sensitive, personal lens to depict the emotional toll and shattered dreams caused by WWII.
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965, Sergei Parajanov), featuring a similarly bold, avant-garde visual style and a doomed protagonist caught between tradition and inescapable fate.
• Closely Watched Trains (1966, Jiří Menzel), combining dark humor with the grim reality of wartime resistance, focusing on a young man's coming-of-age amid political upheaval.
• The Red and the White (1967, Miklós Jancsó), utilizing stark, widescreen compositions to portray the cold, cyclical nature of ideological conflict and the anonymity of death in war.
• Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville), capturing the same gritty, unromanticized atmosphere of underground resistance and the heavy moral burden of political assassination.
• The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci), exploring the psychological complexities of a man attempting to navigate a repressive regime through striking, stylized visual storytelling.
• Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma), which mirrors the shot of the protagonist embracing a dead character as fireworks erupt in the background.

Other films by Andrzej Wajda

• A Generation (1954), and Kanal (1956) – two films, along with Ashes and Diamonds, that comprise Wajda’s war film trilogy
• The Wedding (1973)
• The Promised Land (1975)
• Man of Marble (1977)
• The Maids of Wilko (1979)
• Man of Iron (1981)
• Danton (1983)
• Katyń (2007)