KANAL

Poland, 1956, 96 minutes, Black and white.
Directed by Andrjez Wajda.

Kanal is the second film in a trilogy about the experience of World War 2 in Warsaw by writer-director Andrzej Wajda. The first film was Generation. The third was Ashes and Diamonds. These were Wajda's first films. Wajda continued a successful career in Poland and Germany during the 70s and 80s. In the late '70s he made the critically acclaimed Man of Marble and Man of Iron. Working in France in the '80s he made a number of distinguished films, including Danton.

The film focuses on a small group of men and women, the survivors of a group who took a stance against the Nazis in Warsaw, 1944. We get to know the individuals, see them try to survive, move into the canals under Warsaw, and experience suffering and death. The film is a tribute to these partisans.
Wajda uses a poetic style to indicate the characters, their feelings and motivations - and their being symbolic of so many Poles. The film has a very strong atmosphere of Poland under siege, Warsaw in its war condition, the imprisonment of the sewers.

1. The impact of the film? interest and entertainment value? Polish tribute?

2. Black and white photography? Re-creation of the atmosphere in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation? Black and white photography and the use of light and darkness? The daylight on the streets? The darkness of sewers? The poetic style to indicate characters, what they stood for, their plight? The musical score?

3. The title and the focus on the canals, the sewers, the imprisonment of the war experience?

4. The situation in Warsaw, 1944: the Nazi occupation, the Resistance, the cruelty of the occupation army? The survivors of the platoon?

5. The introduction of the characters? The detailing of background and characters? !he information given that the audience will watch each of the group die? The audience response to looking at characters in their last hours? in a war situation?

6. Their stay in the bombed building, the orders for retreat, the descent into the sewers?

7. The characters in groups: Daisy and Korab: Korab's wounds? The journey through the canal, reaching the river, the blocking by the iron grille? Zaara, his role as commander, with the majority of the group, their moving through the canal, Zaara and his officer gaining the surface, the sergeant who has abandoned the others in the sewers, shooting him, his return to the sewers to search for the men? The musician: his going mad, wandering away, playing his ocarina? Halinsa, her lover, her disillusionment with the officer, Finding that he is married, her shooting herself?

8. The moving experience of the film? Its sadness and pessimism?