Katyn
(2007/Umbrella Entertainment Region Four/4/PAL DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B
PLEASE
NOTE: This
DVD set can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can
handle Region Four/4 PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at
Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the
review.
For
decades, Andrzej Wajda has been an uncompromising voice in World Cinema and of Poland,
his home country in classics like Ashes
& Diamonds (1958), The Promised
Land (1975) and many more. Because
he pulls no punches and appeases no shallow political group, his contributions
have been ignored more than they should and new filmmakers who need to see his
work usually don’t even know who he is.
Yes, the film schools are even failing him. Now comes a film that took him many years to
make and it is among his very best, Katyn
(2007), now on DVD from Umbrella Entertainment.
So why
the trouble in making it? Because it is
the untold ugly story of the mass murder that was going on in one of the
ugliest chapters of many that occurred during WWII with the Poland annexed. At the time, the Soviet
Union was working with the Nazis and when 15,000 officers
disappeared in 1940, no one knew where they had gone. Ironically, when the Nazis invaded the USSR in the spring of 1943 when Hitler betrayed
Stalin, the bodies turned up all over Russia’s
Katyn Forest.
Of course, the USSR
got Poland when the war was
over and it remained communist until the fall of the USSR in the early 1990s. It was only in 1990 that the KGB and Kremlin
accepted official responsibility.
This film
tells the story of how that betrayal occurred, how it affect the country which
has been through more hell than just about any other in the 20th
Century and lays bare the ugly truths that people still do not want to talk
about or believe. Wajda’s own father was
killed in this purge so he had very personal reasons for bringing this story to
life. Using real life sources and his
own long, personal, vivid experiences and ideas needing to be told, it is a
strong film that has not received the acclaim and attention it deserves. It is one of the key lost tales of WWII we do
not hear enough of, but the master filmmaker has begun the process of correcting
this glaring omission in a remarkable film that everyone should see.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image here was shot in Super 35mm film by Director of
Photography Pawel Edelman, pulling off a challenging shoot throughout. This was mastered in 4K digital and the
results are a plus. Unfortunately, the
transfer here is a little softer than expected, but it is still a good looking
and very convincing period shoot. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is very impressive and makes one wish a DTS track was
included because this is a very smart multi-channel mix and is not just
dominated by the Krzysztof Penderecki score. Penderecki is a veteran composer whose scores
include Alain Resnais’ time travel classic Je
T’aime, je T’aime (1968) and he has not lost his touch or edge 40 years
later. Extras include the Polish
Premiere, Original Theatrical Trailer, making of featurette and Wajda
interviewed on the set of the film.
As noted
above, you can order this PAL DVD import exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
