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Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyżewska, Wacław Zastrzeżynski, Adam Pawlikowski
7.7
96%Runtime103 min
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A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.
Critical Reception & Ratings
Ashes and Diamonds is a critically acclaimed 1958 Polish drama directed by Andrzej Wajda. The film has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7/10 score on IMDb, indicating strong positive reception from both critics and audiences. Ashes and Diamonds is considered one of the most important films of the Polish Film School movement.
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Zamachowski appears in this acclaimed Polish masterpiece from Andrzej Wajda, a stylistically-striking, psychologically-nuanced exploration of the moral complexities of the post-war era, blending political turmoil with intimate character study.
About
Ashes and Diamonds is a 1958 Polish drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the 1948 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. Starring Zbigniew Cybulski and Ewa Krzyżewska, it completed Wajda's war films trilogy, following A Generation (1954) and Kanal (1956). The action of Ashes and Diamonds takes place in 1945, shortly after World War II. The main protagonist of the film, former Home Army soldier Maciek Chełmicki, is acting in the anti-Communist underground. Maciek receives an order to kill Szczuka, the local secretary of the Polish Workers' Party. Over time, Chełmicki increasingly doubts if his task is worth doing.
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