Sometimes films get reputations way out of proportion with their artistic merit simply because they expound a point of view that the public, or critics, like or agree with. Such is the case with the first feature length film from Polish film legend Andrzej Wajda. Released in 1955, the 87 minute long black and white film A Generation (Pokolenie), is not a particularly good film. No, it's not a bad film, but it visually resembles a mediocre 1940s film noir admixed with a touch of Italian Neo-Realism from its blighted and impoverished landscapes. Its characters, such as they are, are not realistic, and merely one dimensional tools for the agitprop that is at the heart of the film.
Yes, one must realize that the film needed to be green lighted by Polish censors, but unlike the ways a more mature Wajda, and later filmmakers like Roman Polanski (who has a small acting role in the film) and Krzysztof Kieslowski (called the Polish School), would, A Generation plays out more like a Primer for Communism. It became part of a de facto War Trilogy of films made about Poland's World War Two Experience, and it is packaged by The Criterion Collection as part of a Three War Films collection, along with Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół I Diament). Hopefully the two later films provide more true cinema to be savored .
The cinematography by Jerzy Lipman is solid but unspectacular, and the scoring not even up to Hollywood B film melodrama standards. Often, mediocre films like this are defended by acolytes on grounds that its visuals are 'pure cinema,' or some such. Well, this one's are not, but even were the mise-en-scene great, it would not make up for the leaden acting, dull script, and agitprop galore. Given that an average feature film will have dozens to hundreds of framed shots, the laws of average, and random chance, will demand that a few will be well-composed. So? It's whether or not a far greater number than average are which matters. Or whether or not the few that are are super-poetic, or the like. Then, one might have an argument over the visual elements raising up the bar for the film. A Generation lacks that, all of that.
Similarly, although it is reasonable to argue that the Marxist references in the film were intended, at the time, as a sly backhanded critique of the system, none of that matters now, as it is simply blatant agitprop. Great art rises above such strictures, and the idiocies of would be censors. Minor anachronisms- such as a racist caricature of a black man on a cuckoo clock, are not as egregious, since it is emblemic of the times and its attitudes. Overall, A Generation does show some promise, especially in the Jasio Krone character, and a few scenes of realistic interplay, such as when Dorota and Stach first have sex, because she refuses to let him leave after the Nazi curfew has come. But, these are few. Wajda may have gone on to become a great filmmaker, but that grace is not evident here. Perhaps that is another legacy of art in totalitarian states, inside or outside a celluloid frame.
Yes, one must realize that the film needed to be green lighted by Polish censors, but unlike the ways a more mature Wajda, and later filmmakers like Roman Polanski (who has a small acting role in the film) and Krzysztof Kieslowski (called the Polish School), would, A Generation plays out more like a Primer for Communism. It became part of a de facto War Trilogy of films made about Poland's World War Two Experience, and it is packaged by The Criterion Collection as part of a Three War Films collection, along with Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół I Diament). Hopefully the two later films provide more true cinema to be savored .
The cinematography by Jerzy Lipman is solid but unspectacular, and the scoring not even up to Hollywood B film melodrama standards. Often, mediocre films like this are defended by acolytes on grounds that its visuals are 'pure cinema,' or some such. Well, this one's are not, but even were the mise-en-scene great, it would not make up for the leaden acting, dull script, and agitprop galore. Given that an average feature film will have dozens to hundreds of framed shots, the laws of average, and random chance, will demand that a few will be well-composed. So? It's whether or not a far greater number than average are which matters. Or whether or not the few that are are super-poetic, or the like. Then, one might have an argument over the visual elements raising up the bar for the film. A Generation lacks that, all of that.
Similarly, although it is reasonable to argue that the Marxist references in the film were intended, at the time, as a sly backhanded critique of the system, none of that matters now, as it is simply blatant agitprop. Great art rises above such strictures, and the idiocies of would be censors. Minor anachronisms- such as a racist caricature of a black man on a cuckoo clock, are not as egregious, since it is emblemic of the times and its attitudes. Overall, A Generation does show some promise, especially in the Jasio Krone character, and a few scenes of realistic interplay, such as when Dorota and Stach first have sex, because she refuses to let him leave after the Nazi curfew has come. But, these are few. Wajda may have gone on to become a great filmmaker, but that grace is not evident here. Perhaps that is another legacy of art in totalitarian states, inside or outside a celluloid frame.