Speaking for an entire generation that came of age in wartime, Maciek tells Christine, "I want a simple life. In the meantime, Maciek strikes up a flirtation with a pretty blondeīarmaid, Christine (Ewa Krzyzewska) working in the hotel, and as their relationship progresses, begins to question the futility of all the killing, and considers giving up his mission. Assassin Maciek receives orders to continue on his mission to kill the Communist Party official, Szczuka (Waclaw Zastrzezynski). At this lone outpost in a bleak provincial town pocked with bombed-out buildings, the local Communist officials assemble for a celebratory dinner and to consolidate their power. That tragic killing immediately defines the despairing tone of a film about a nation out of balance, devastated by war and with little to look forward to.Īfter the double murder, Maciek and Andrzej hole up at the Monopol Hotel, awaiting orders. Powerful statement about the ultimate absurdity of politics, where one totalitarian force replaces another in an endless cycle of power struggles.Īshes and Diamonds begins with a terrible mistake two members of the Polish Resistance, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) and Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski), on a mission to assassinate a Communist official, accidentally murder two innocent men who have just returnedįrom a German labor camp. It was the third in Wajda's war trilogy, including A Generation (1955) and Kanal (1957), and a Polish director Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds (1958) is a poetic chronicle of a turbulent period that begins on the first day of peace at the close of World War II. He runs through the city and dies in agony on a rubbish heap. He kills Szczuka, but Maciek himself is wounded while trying to escape. Humiliated by charges of desertion, however, he is once more forced to stalk his prey. After spending the night with her, he decides he is through with killing and will enter a university. That night Maciek attends a victory banquet, and is strongly attracted to a young barmaid, Christine. Despite years of following orders without question, he cannot bring himself to celebrate this first day of peace with the prospect of yet another killing, especially since Szczuka seems to him to be a harmless man. They mistakenly shoot down two innocent workmen, and young Maciek, deeply affected by this needless waste of life, balks at the thought of carrying out his assignment. On May 7, 1945, V-E Day, Andrzej and Maciek, two resistance fighters in a small Polish town, receive orders from their headquarters in London to assassinate the newly arrived Communist Party secretary, Szczuka.
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