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Studio:Artificial Eye

Director:Andrzej Wajda

Cast: Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska, Andrzej Chyra, Danuta Stenka

Running Time:115 minutes

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- Like powerful, well-made war films? Then please read on...

Before I watched this film I knew nothing of the awful events that happened in the Katyn Forest. The 14000-22000(est) murders were ordered at the behest of Stalin's Soviet Government and the events that occured were subject to a subsequent cover-up and 50 year denial. Polish-Russian relations still suffer to this day because of it.

The story is told through a young Polish captain and his family; and shows their ensuing turmoil and mental torture. The film also features authentic Nazi German and Soviet newsreels from the time woven into the story and real footage of the mass graves are shown shortly after its discovery. This is not easy viewing...

Frequently disturbing and uncomfortable; Kaytn is a film with noble intentions of documenting an awful atrocity - which is still clearly raw in the hearts of all Polish people.

Katyn is comparable in tone and scale to Polanski's 'The Pianist'.

Katyn was nominated for 'Best Foreign Language Film' at 2008 Acadamy Awards.

The film has been produced on a large budget and shot on a scale which is rarely seen in foreign funded films - and the Katyn Massacre story itself is certainly handled with all the respect it deserves. It is well directed by Wadja and the cinamatography is impressive throughout. Also the casting is noticably top-drawer.

Its transfer to Blu-ray will only compliment it further.

I cannot recommend highly enough.

- A piece of history that shaped Europe

This is a film that should be widely seen. It deals with the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the second world war. Not only was this a devastating killing on a large scale - more than 20,000 officers were killed - but also it was a Soviet cover up as they tampered with evidence to blame the Germans.

The film takes the perspective of families caught up in the atrocity and its aftermath. It tells the story of men killed and the elderly parents, wives, daughters or sisters they left behind. Those who could not accept that the truth was buried, to those who took a pragmatic view dealing with the new regime as they found it but doing what they could to ensure Poland's survival.

Poland took a geographically central role in the second world war. Caught between the Germans and the Soviets one officer wryly talks about the duration of their incarceration noting that it's between the 1000 year Reich and communism being forever!

As testament to the film, the audience was absolutely silent at the end.

- Katyn

I am so happy that this film is with us at last! Andrzej Wajda waited a long time to make this. It was his very own settling accounts with the past and communism. His father died in Katyn and so did many of Poland's great brains. People do not realise that Poland was attacked from both sides....and I am not sure who was worse: the Germans or the Russians? Cruelty beyond belief, propaganda, selling Poland to Russians and communism followed suit. To know that this was a "white stain" or a taboo for Poles for many years adds to the drama of this movie. I went to the cinema to see this movie and the silence after the film ended was indeed very moving. To add to this tragedy of Polish nation was recent plane crush in which many memebers of Polish government perished...in the same forest....the same country...on the way to attend memorial service to victims of Katyn! I think that everyone should see this movie just like everyone should learn the truth about the second World War. This should be the best anti-war deterrent!

- Absolutely Excellent

I found this film utterly riveting. Not only does it reveal an important and widely neglected subject, but it is beautiful to look at, exceptionally well acted and paints the grander issues of history in a moving personal manner.

- Poland's tragedy

The historian, Norman Davies, has written a number of books which approach WWII from the Polish viewpoint. In particular, 'The Heart of Europe', 'No Simple Victory' and 'Rising'44'' (concerning the Warsaw Rising, as opposed to the more widely known Ghetto Uprising). The overall picture created by these works is one of a terrifying and tragic historical record which has been misunderstood, forgotten, or wilfully obscured by those who should know better.

Poland was the first nation to actually fight the Nazis, to stand up to them whilst others simply talked. And, for various connecting reasons, the Poles were let down by their Allies, to then find themselves brutally invaded from the East by the Soviets. Between the predations of the SS and the NKVD the country's population began to be systematically exterminated, subject to some of the most savage crimes of the entire war.

The Katyn massacre was used as a propaganda football between the two totalitarian monsters, each blaming the other for the atrocity. When Poland was finally betrayed - again - by the Allies, at Yalta in 1945, the official Stalinist decree on the subject was ruthlessly conformed to by the apparatchiks.

So, when I watched 'Katyn', I wondered how Wajda would approach this episode. He does so in his own special style. Much Catholic imagery. A score by the great composer Penderecki (- his nightmarish threnody, 'The Awakening of Jacob', 1974). Interlocking and extraneous characters.

Knowing the history certainly made me more aware of the details presented within the film. The mentions of the Rising, of The Ander's Army, the area of 'the general government', and so on. The film is bleak. But it could be so much bleaker.

At about two thirds of the way through I thought, 'Maybe we're going to be spared the actual details of the executions themselves? The story has moved on. We have a good idea of what actually happened. That's enough.'

At this point 'Katyn' begins to encompass and explore the post-war nature of the New Poland. The noxious nature of propaganda, the blatant altering of history by the victors. How the survivors try to adjust. Or can't adjust. Or simply wish to continue the sacrifice, fighting for a free democratic country.

The final part of the film inevitably loops back, to focus on the actual killing of the officers. What shocks most is the way the operation is so carefully orchestrated. Though the executions at Kalinin took place at night - not in day-time, as depicted here. The chief executioners worked 10 hour shifts throughout the hours of darkness, and stopped before dawn. Stalin liked secrecy when 'black work' was being carried out. But the casual, systematic brutality of the NKVD killing machine is shown here in grim, chilling detail which is authentic enough in its brutality. The emotional impact of this I cannot even begin to describe.

The last image is of soil as it is bulldozed onto the bodies; the lies suffocating truth. A wall of darkness remains on the screen while the film fades out, a Requiem mass sung over this. I sat in silence afterwards, overwhelmed by what I'd just seen.

The Polish resistance never stopped fighting after the war. The WiN (Freedom and Democracy movement) took on the appalling might of the NKVD regiments. They fought to a bloody standstill in the forests, the bravest of the brave. 40,000 of them killed by Stalin's secret police.

'Katyn' is a film which will hopefully encourage other films about the Polish aspect of WWII. Wajda's 'Kanal' still remains the best known about the Home Army/Warsaw Rising, August-October 1944. But a new film on that particular subject - and how the Soviet's cynically left the AK to their fate - is long overdue.