Later this month, the Criterion Collection is releasing the box set "Andrzej Wajda: Three War Films," with three of the Polish director's most acclaimed films: Pokolenie / A Generation (1955), Kanal (1957), and Popiól i diament / Ashes and Diamonds (1958), which stars the "Polish James Dean," Zbigniew Cybulski. (Like Dean, the offbeat Cybulski had an unexpected, bloody death. At age 40, the by then heavy-drinking actor was struck by a railway train.)
Andrzej Wajda, who received an Honorary Academy Award for his body of work at the 2000 Oscar ceremony, was one of the most influential figures in Eastern European cinema.
In A Generation, Wajda explores the plight of Polish youth reaching adulthood during the German occupation; Kanal is reportedly the first film ever made about the Warsaw uprising of 1944; and Ashes and Diamonds is the tale of a young Polish resistance fighter who is ordered to kill a local Communist leader.
Bit of trivia: Roman Polanski has a small role in A Generation.
Scheduled Region 0 DVD (playable anywhere) release date in the United States: April 26, 2005
- Picture: Full frame, 1.33:1
- Audio: Polish (Dolby Digital Mono 1.0)
- Language: Polish
- Subtitle: English (optional)
- Black and White
- Interviews with director Andrzej Wajda and "his colleagues"
List price: US$79.95.
A Criterion Collection release.