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Kanal(Criterion Collection)

 

 

Directed by Andrzej Wajda 

Poland 1957 / War / Drama /  96 min / Black & White / Monaural / 1.33:1 Ratio / NTSC /  In Polish with English Subtitles

Wienczyslaw Glinski , Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Emil Karewicz, Wladyslaw Sheybal .

The second of Polish director Andrzej Wajda's WWII trilogy, following Pokolenie (A Generation) and preceding Popiol I diament (Ashes and Diamonds), Kanal is the most physically harrowing of the set. Based on the experiences of Jerzy Stefan Stawinski, a Polish patriot who participated in the battle for Warsaw in 1939 as an 18-year-old and in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the action takes place in the last week of the 63-day Uprising, as the Nazis hunt down what few freedom fighters remain. A band of Poles takes to the sewers in hopes of escaping, but they become disoriented by the darkness and the fumes of the waist-deep filth. Whenever the Poles try to emerge for orientation or relief, the Germans are there to greet them with a hail of bullets. Kanal was Wajda's coming-out film; it won two prizes at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and clicked with both European and American audiences, in spite of its grueling story and pessimistic tone.

 
       

BONUS FEATURES:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Andrzej Wajda: On Kanal, a 27-minute exclusive new interview with the director, assistant director Janusz Morgenstern, and film critic Jerzy Plazewski
Jan Nowak-Jezioranski: Courier from Warsaw, a new 28-minute interview by Wajda of a Warsaw Uprising insider
Rare behind-the-scenes production photos, publicity stills, and posters
New and improved English subtitle translation