Katyn is one of those place names, like Auschwitz or the Somme, the very mention of which calls forth images of death. Not just the deaths of individuals, terrible as that is in itself, but also the death, the willful ravishing of the human spirit, in the victims as well as the perpetrators.
The title of the film refers to the 1940 Katyn massacre in which an estimated 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were executed by Soviet troops. A concerted Soviet propaganda campaign was subsequently launched to place the blame for the massacre on the defeated Nazi regime, a campaign that, especially in its use of willing or unwilling collaborators, heaped insult on injury.
This is hardly new territory for Wajda, who has made many highly acclaimed feature films exploring Poland’s history, especially the depredations of the Soviets. Katyn cleaned up at the Polish Film Awards last year, and though the film’s appeal my not be quite so apparent outside Poland, it has also been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars. The first hurdle to Katyn is that considerable knowledge of the complex political maneuvering behind Soviet-German relations during the early 1940s is crucial in appreciating the complexity of the enormous tapestry that Wajda weaves in Katyn.
The film juggles a number of story lines. It follows the gradual progress of the Polish officers toward their final destruction and the slow realization that the standards of war they had been taught no longer applied in this new and horrific conflict. It also follows the families left behind, who first hope, then grieve, then revolt against the imposition of lies they are forced to swallow. Wajda presents Poland, with its high intellectual traditions and strong middle-class values, as caught between two messianic regimes that want to recreate the world in their own images.
In the very first scene, we see that Wajda is setting Katyn up as a Greek tragedy on a grand scale. Anna (Maja Ostaszewska), the wife of an army officer, flees the Germans only to run into friends coming the other way, fleeing the Soviets. Which way to run? Poland is caught between the hammer and the anvil. Anna’s husband Andrzej (Artur Zmijewski), has a chance to sneak away in the chaos as Polish troops are corralled by the Soviets, but refuses to leave his regiment in the belief that as POWs, he and his troops will be dealt with according to recognized rules of war. His gradual realization that these rules have long since been thrown out the window is heartrending to witness.
And so the film progresses through its 118 minutes, and it is a marvel that Wajda is able to condense so much into such a sort time. In Hollywood, nothing less than three hours would suffice for such an epic, but Wajda is a master storyteller, conveying enormous complexities in three or four lines of dialogue. The emphasis of Katyn is political rather than personal, or, more correctly, its focus is the psychological and emotional impact that politics can have on ordinary people. Anna and Andrzej are both a kind of Polish everyman rather than deeply drawn characters, but they are convincing enough to elicit sympathy at their horrendous plight. Lieutenant Jerzy (Andrzej Chyra), Andrzej’s friend and comrade in arms, is a good man who toes the Soviet line in order to live, but shoots himself when he realizes that his actions have lost him everything he values. The characters are sketched with conviction, but you are left in no doubt that the protagonist throughout is Wajda’s beloved Poland.
And for the Polish officers held by the Soviets, Wajda lingers over the terrible images of carnage as man after man is taken from a Black Maria and shot in the back of the head. Some are stoical, others call on Jesus, others are merely bewildered, husbands, fathers, sons, dispatched with a terrifyingly dispassionate efficiency over a scene that runs for more than 10 minutes. This is the final exclamation point on which the film ends, and the harrowing injustice that such an action should have taken place stays with the viewer long after one leaves the theater. And, Wajda seems to say, this is only the beginning, for on top of the bodies lie a mountain of lies, and these lies will breed further injustice and more violent death.
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
Food prices have often played a major role in Taiwan’s history. The first major wave of migration from China occurred in 1628. A moderate drought, the Ming Dynasty maritime ban that prohibited fishing and trading (intended to reduce piracy) and a temporary tax, conspired to exhaust local resources, leading to famine in Fujian Province. The famed pirate and trader Zheng Zhilong (鄭芝龍), scooped up starving people from Fujian and transported them across the Taiwan Strait, where they settled under the Dutch. Two factors enabled Zheng. First, by 1624 he had settlements around today’s Beigang (北港) in Yunlin County with a small
RSS