Ashes and Diamonds

Ashes and Diamonds (Polish: Popiół i diament) is a 1958 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the 1948 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It completed Wajda's war films trilogy, following A Generation (1954) and Kanal (1956).

The title comes from a 19th Century poem by Cyprian Norwid and references the manner in which diamonds are formed from heat and pressure acting upon coal.

Synopsis

In an unnamed small Polish town on May 8, 1945, the day Germany officially surrendered, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) and Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) are Home Army soldiers who have been assigned to assassinate the communist Commissar Szczuka (Wacław Zastrzeżyński), but fail in their first attempt to ambush him, killing two civilian cement plant workers instead. They are given a second chance in the town's leading hotel and banquet hall, Monopol.

Meanwhile, a grand fête is being organized at the hall for a newly appointed minor minister (and current town mayor) by his assistant, Drewnowski (Bogumił Kobiela). Drewnowski is in fact a double agent, present at the first attempt to kill Szczuka. Maciek manages to sweet talk himself into a room with the desk clerk, who is also a fellow Warsaw native. They sadly reminisce about such things as the older section of town and the chestnut trees which were lost when the Germans destroyed most of the city in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising. While Maciek and Andrzej bide their time to strike Szczuka, Maciek becomes infatuated with the hotel's barmaid, Krystyna (Ewa Krzyżewska).

Szczuka is attempting to locate his long lost son, Marek. Unbeknownst to the old soldier (Szczuka served during the Spanish Civil War like many communists in the 1930s), Marek has been serving in the Home Army and was recently captured by the Red Army. Marek was serving under the officer Andrzej will replace.

Maciek's crush on Krystyna grows as the hour he must assassinate Szczuka nears, while Drewnowski becomes giddy at the thought at what his boss' promotion will do for his own career. Drinking with a cynical reporter until he is quite drunk, Drewnowski barges into the banquet dinner. In short order he sprays the guests with a fire extinguisher, pulls the tablecloth (and everything on it) to the floor and finds himself out of a job.

After sleeping with Krystyna, Maciek goes for a walk with her and ends up in a bombed-out church. She finds an inscription on the wall, a poem by Cyprian Norwid:

So often, are you as a blazing torch with flames

of burning rags falling about you flaming,

you know not if flames bring freedom or death.

Consuming all that you must cherish

if ashes only will be left, and want Chaos and tempest

Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond

The Morning Star of everlasting triumph.

Attempting to fix her broken heel, Maciek stumbles into a crypt where the bodies of the men he killed that morning are laid out awaiting burial. He then decides he must carry out his orders, and when Szczuka forgoes his car to walk to the detention area holding his son, Maciek takes advantage of the opportunity to shoot him. As Szczuka falls, fireworks celebrating the end of the war fill the sky.

The following morning, Maciek goes to the truck where Andrzej awaits. From concealment he watches as Drewnowski arrives thinking he will join them, but Andrzej is aware that Drewnowski is only doing it because he has no other choice. Andrzej throws him to the ground and drives off. When Drewnowski sees Maciek, he calls out to him. Maciek flees and runs into a patrol of Polish soldiers. He is shot and ends up dying in a trash heap.

References to the Warsaw Uprising

The main character, Maciek, has to wear a sunglass all the time, since he was in the Warsaw Uprising, which took place between August 1 and October 2 (63 days in total), and where insurgents used the Warsaw sewers to move between the Old Town and the Downtown of Warsaw. Maciek being part of the uprising explains his hatred of the Soviets, who were on the other side of the Vistula but did not help the insurgents at all. He also mentions Warsaw as a beautiful memory to the porter, obviously referring to the almost total (85%) destruction of Warsaw by the Germans following the uprising.

External links

• Ashes and Diamonds at the Internet Movie Database
• Ashes and Diamonds at Allmovie
• Criterion Collection essay by Paul Coates

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