NP Katyn

[Rob Jackson]

On 22/05/2009, at 8:22 AM, pynchon-l-digest wrote:

>
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html
> (this article has really pissed off the Poles by the way)

Katyn	Rated MA
Review by Margaret Pomeranz

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a film from the great Polish  
director Andrzej Wajda in cinemas here.

It’s moving in more ways than one to welcome him back with KATYN about  
the 1940 World War 2 slaughter by Russian security forces of over tens  
of thousands Polish officers and intellectuals.

The story is mainly told through the families left behind as fathers,  
sons and husbands are transported east to prison camps.

In 1943 the Germans discovered the mass graves and attributed the  
atrocity to the Russians. However in post-war Poland history was re- 
written by the Soviets, the Germans were blamed and Katyn became a  
forbidden topic.

This is wonderful classic filmmaking from a master. Wajda had reason  
to be emotional about this film because his own father, a Captain in  
the Polish cavalry, was one of the victims of Katyn.

This film reveals a history that was distorted for political purposes,  
only acknowledged in 1990 by the Russians. Living with that revelation  
of the massacre in 1943 and later with the suppression of the truth  
was an anguish for many Poles, often a fatal anguish. ...

... And you look at those wonderful filmmakers that made films behind  
the Iron Curtain for all those years and made political statements  
within their films very subtly and very cleverly. ...

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2549845.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn

best wishes