On Hitler's Highway

Plot

Hitler's Highway is the first film in a trilogy of documentaries (the other two are The Boot Factory and East of Paradise) exploring director Lech Kowalski's roots in Poland, punk rock, and the effects of history on both from World War II to the present. The documentary is told by Kowalski's video camera as he travels a highway in Poland that was used as a main thoroughfare by the Nazis in their march to the Soviet Union. He frequently stops to speak with roadside salesman, workers, and prostitutes and talks to them about their lives and what they think of the road. The director's running narration relays his inner thoughts throughout his travels. Near Auschwitz, he speaks with locals about a controversial plan to open a disco in the town and various town members and teenagers express a mixture of respect for the tragedy that occurred, frustration at having to live amongst such a gloomy history, and indifference. Kowalski also meets an older gypsy man, who he takes to see some relatives and to visit an old work camp and observes the poverty, tradition, and clannish suspicion that rules the gypsy's lives. After visiting an abandoned Soviet military base, Kowalski finishes his journey at a political event opening a new portion of the highway. Through personal and sociological perspectives the film explores the legacies of the Nazi and Soviet occupations of the 20th century within Poland, but also addresses issues of historical scars and the way they effect mass populations within a larger context. ~ Michael Buening, Rovi

Review

Hitler's Highway is shot entirely from director Lech Kowalski's point of view as he drives along the "oldest highway in Poland," which was built to ferry Nazi supplies to the Soviet Union. What begins as an exploration of the sixty-year old human and physical scars of World War II quickly takes on grander elegiac scope. The highway was built along a path used by invading armies throughout history. The people who Kowalski interviews along the side of the road--produce sellers, gypsies, drunken manual workers, and prostitutes--are the detritus that have always littered the European roads of conquest. At times the camera brings these bit actors to the fore to tell their life stories. Occasionally the camera is just a new form of exploitation. When Kowalski wakes up a homeless drunk sleeping in the weeds, a stoned roadside worker tries to calm the startled man down by laughing, "It's just a camera." "No, that's a gun," he shouts.

Along the highway are constant reminders of the tools with which the nearby populace has been oppressed: a work camp, Auschwitz, Soviet military bases, and the highway itself, which was built on the backs of peasants. Even when given a voice the words of these people are drowned out by the roar of diesel trucks. The ending, at the opening of a new stretch of the road, shows that this history will continue. While the film is sympathetic towards its subjects, it is helpless to effect any change and at times coldly unaffected given its grand historical outlook, an issue Kowalski struggles with through his voice over narration. The only salve is that at least brutal man-made institutions will be trumped by nature's long-term indifference. While gazing at a crumbling highway overpass Kowalski muses, "there's something calming--what man has built can be destroyed." Balancing the personal and profound with mastery, Hitler's Highway is a complex and provocative essay on the politics of the downtrodden from an often overlooked director. ~ Michael Buening, Rovi

Cast

• Lech Kowalski - Narrator

Credit

Lech Kowalski - Director, Lech Kowalski - Editor, Sal Bernady - Composer (Music Score), XYZ - Composer (Music Score), Lech Kowalski - Cinematographer, Blache Guichou - Producer, Lech Kowalski - Screenwriter

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