GENERAL NIL
Poland, 2009, 125 minutes, Colour.
Olgierd Lucaszewicz.
Directed by Ryszard Bugajski.
This tribute is rather late in coming. It is a 21st-century look back at the resistance in Poland in World War II and the subsequent Communist regime and its harshness.
General Nil was the codename for Emile Fieldorf who commanded the resistance forces. Early in the film we see the assassination of a German officer. We see the role of General Nil, allegedly a railway worker, but making all kinds of contacts, receiving instructions from Poles in England. He lives a dangerous life.
The first part of the film is rather episodic, indications of particular events from 1944 to 1950. We learn that Fieldorf was arrested because he had a great deal of currency and was considered a profiteer, served time in a Gulag in Siberia, returned to Warsaw, made himself known to the authorities, reconciled with his wife and family from whom he had been separated for so long, was advised to go to England, but accepted what was happening in Poland.
However, vengeful authorities resented him, arrested him, tortured him, executed him, buried him in an unknown spot. At the end of the 20th century his reputation was vindicated and here is a film tribute to him.
1. A significant Polish film? A significant Polish subject? World War II? The resistance to the Nazis? Imprisonment in Siberia? Arrests, rigged trials, executions?
2. The Polish settings, the 1940s, Warsaw, the countryside? The trains from Siberia? The Communist regime after World War II? Homes, offices, courts, prisons? Executions? The musical score?
3. The status of the central character? His German name? His nickname during the war? His command? The resistance members? Their activities? Initial scene of the assassination of the German officer in the streets, the German response, the resistance members, death?
4. The structure of the film: the glimpses of activity during the 1940s, the trip back from Siberia and the flashbacks? The general and his activities during the war? His contacts, orders from England? The patriotic followers? The background of his marriage, away from his wife, her later criticisms, her forgiving him, his asking forgiveness? The sketches of activities from 1944, 1945, 1947 and to the beginning of the 1950s? Building up a picture of the central character, his experiences, Communist rule in Poland?
5. The personality of the general, his command during the war? Accused of being profiteering, his arrest, sent to Siberia? His return? His collapse? Going to Helena for some help? Reunited with his wife and daughters, the granddaughter? His woodwork, his previous cover as a railway worker? His friends urging him to go abroad? His decision to stay?
6. His decision to go to the authorities, explaining who he was, the reactions? His friends, those in the government and their advice? The emissary from London, going to the sanatorium where his friend worked, the discussions in the mountains? This being brought up later in his trial?
7. The suddenness of his arrest, imprisonment, treatment, water in the cell? The interrogations, the brutality, the demands? The other prisoners in the cell, being taken at random, the interrogations, the man brutalised and his fingernails cut? His later testimony in the trial? Coached responses?
8. The general, his interrogation, standing firm? His wife and daughters urging him to make an appeal for reprieve? The reaction of the president, the audience with the children, his casual at attitude, refusing the reprieve?
9. The general, taken from the cell, march to the gallows, no blindfold, the execution? His body taken, thrown into a pit with other bodies, the lime poured over them?
10. The later explanations, his vindication in later decades, acknowledgement of his heroism, his burial place and never discovered? This film as a tribute?
