Widely regarded as Andrzej Wajda's masterpiece, 1958's Ashes and Diamonds, based on a novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, is the final film in the director's trilogy (after A Generation and Kanal, the latter also newly available on DVD) about the experiences of young Poles in World War II. The story centers on Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), a high-strung member of the resistance Home Army, who's assigned to assassinate the newly-appointed communist first secretary in a recently liberated provincial town but comes to question his violent life when he encounters a woman's love for the first time. Set over the course of a single day, the film melds social observation and tragedy, working as a suspense thriller in the Graham Greene mold, a character study, and a sort of cinematic elegy to postwar Poland. It's also a visually striking work, alternately electrifying in its energy and hauntingly poetic in its stillness. Cybulski--sometimes called the 'Polish James Dean' not only for his magnetism and bravura style but also because he too died young--is almost operatically over-the-top, but his performance fits the picture's extravagant approach. Still powerful some 45 years later, Ashes and Diamonds is presented here in a fine letterboxed transfer, with extras including stills, posters, and a text bio of the director. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)
[Blu-ray Review—Aug. 17, 2021—Criterion, 103 min., in Polish w/English subtitles, not rated, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its debut on Blu-ray, Ashes and Diamonds (1958) features an excellent 4K digital restoration and extras including a 2004 audio commentary featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf, a new video essay by Insdorf on the film’s legacy, the 2005 featurette “Andrzej Wajda: On Ashes and Diamonds,” (with Wajda, second director Janusz Morgenstern, and film critic Jerzy Plazewski), archival “making-of” newsreel footage, and a booklet with an essay by film scholar Paul Coates. Bottom line: a classic of Polish cinema makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]