Rent Andrzej Wajda: Canal (1957)

Shows its age but still startles - Andrzej Wajda: Canal review by Alphaville

B/w 1957 film, second in Andrzej Wajda’s classic anti-war trilogy, about resistance fighters fleeing Nazis through the sewers of Warsaw. Most of the film is set in the sewers and is very dark, with incidents that are somewhat samey, but overall it stands up well for its age and remains a priceless document. Some of the early travelling shots still startle and you’ll not forget the ending.

Fatalistic vision of Warsaw Uprising - Andrzej Wajda: Canal review by JO

A story set during the last days of the Warsaw Uprising in September 1944. Lt Zadra is in charge of a company of 43 men, soldiers and civilians. Following an air raid by German bombers they move to a new position in the city. The Nazi forces advance and surround the company. Zadra is ordered to retreat and escape the Nazi onslaught by heading for the city through the underground sewers. The company slog through the filth and darkness. 

Wajda' s film is full of despair and the mood is fatalistic throughout, making this a tough watch. The first half of the film has poignant moments:  a scene in which the artist Michal seals to his wife on the phone and hears that they are coming for her next is heartbreaking. However, the second half in the sewers is uncompromisingly bleak as the soldiers scrabble through the labyrinthine sewer system like rats while the German forces plant booby traps to kill them or wait for the rebels to surface so they can shoot them instantly. Wajda focuses on the dehumanising effects of war, particularly when a soldier betrays Zadra by telling him that the company are right behind him when in fact they lost them a long time ago. Film is brilliantly shot and edited with exciting and vividly recreated war scenes. The film deserves credit for showing the courage and bravery of the Warsaw Uprising, who defiantly carried on until the end.