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Ashes and Diamonds (film)

Ashes and Diamonds
Ashes-and-diamonds-polish-poster.jpg
1958 Polish poster by Wojciech Fangor
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Produced by Roman Mann
Written by Jerzy Andrzejewski
Starring
Music by Filip Nowak
Distributed by KADR
Release date
  • October 3, 1958 (1958-10-03)
Running time
103 minutes
Country Poland
Language Polish

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.

Ashes and Diamonds is considered by film critics to be one of the great masterpieces of Polish cinema and arguably the finest Polish realist film. Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have cited the film as one of their favourites. A critics' poll by the Village Voice called it the 86th best film of all time.

In an unnamed small Polish town on May 8, 1945, the day Germany officially surrendered, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) and Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) are former Home Army soldiers, now cursed 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).


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