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Release Date 19 Jun 2009 TBA
80% of raters want to see this movie
Certificate: 15
Genre:
In the spring of 1940, following the invasion of Poland by Russia's Red Army in 1939, up to 20,000 Polish officers and soldiers were executed by Stalin's secret police. The men were imprisoned in three POW camps, one of which was based in the Katy? forest. Working from a novel by Andrzej Mularczyk and real life accounts, "Katy?" tells the story of four fictional families, forever separated from one another in 1939. A brutal and devastating work, it also received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008.
Cast: Artur Zmijewski | Maja Ostaszewska | Andrzej Chyra | Danuta Stenka | Jan Englert | Magdalena Cielecka | Agnieszka Glinska | Pawel Malaszynski | Maja Komorowska | Wladyslaw Kowalski
Writers: Andrzej Mularczyk | Wladyslaw Pasikowski
Producers: Michal Kwiecinski
Directors: Andrzej Wajda
Our critics review will be added soon.
Katyn is a Polish film documenting the massacre of Polish troops in the Spring of 1940 in the Katyn forests. The Soviets and Nazi’s each intentionally blamed the other for the atrocity in an attempt to generate national outrage against their foes whilst currying favour for their own cause. I like war films in general, anything based in fact, I can invest in, and, to add to the credibility, the director inserted original footage recorded at the time and interspersed it with the unfolding storyline which was a nice touch and fascinating when put into that context. However, the overall editing was sloppy, it jumped from set to set and year to year without announcement and character storylines were not developed or delved into which made it difficult to empathise with the fallen heroes. Occasionally it was even impossible to tell the relationships characters had with each other and this was confirmed for me when I heard the lady behind me ask her friend “is that the pilot’s sister?” The finale is the massacre itself as the director clearly hoped that all the pieces of the previous ninety minutes would fall into place and we’d be left numb as our protagonists met their fate. But instead we watched a line of men queue up to face an execution style death in cold, graphic and disturbing detail that hinted at “Oscar clip” sensationalism. Whilst the murders themselves were gruesome, knowing as little as we did about the characters left me thinking it was all somewhat pointless and I was forced to remind myself of the historical event, blocking out the film, to really appreciate the horrors of what occurred.
Gritty and moving
good historical movie, well worth a watch
very good war drama from poland, true events!
good war drama !
very good film, must see!
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