Krzyzacy: Order of Teutonic Knights

The shadow of the 1938 Soviet classic Alexander Nevsky looms large over this 1960 Polish epic. Both are nationalistic tales based on actual events, culminating in massive medieval battles pitting a heroic Slavic resistance against an imposing army of Germanic invaders. Both were officially-sponsored statements by Communist regimes about the dangers of the West, and both emphasize the hypocritical religiosity of Christian knights who preach virtue but prove themselves to be both brutal and power-hungry. Unfortunately, director Aleksander Ford is no Sergei Eisenstein, and Krzyóacy is no Alexander Nevsky. Based on a book by Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis), the backdrop of the story is the 1410 battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), in which the combined forces of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania achieved a decisive defeat over the military order of mounted knights that had not only established hegemony in Prussia as part of a 13th-century Christian crusade in Eastern Europe but was also seeking to impose control over adjacent territories. The central plot—involving a landowner who becomes a resistance leader, his lovely daughter, a dashing young Polish knight who falls in love with her, and the knight's gruff uncle—is the sort of familiar fantasy rooted in romantic 19th-century novels set in medieval times, and is played with almost operatic heavy-handedness. While the film boasts some striking images, and the final battle sequence (almost 30 minutes) is impressive, the near-three-hour Krzyóacy is ultimately no more than mediocre. DVD extras include a biography of Sienkiewicz (in Polish only, unfortunately). Optional. (F. Swietek)