christopherwcampbell To some this may be a war movie. To others it may be an expose of the malign caprices of brutal authoritarian regimes. To many of us, I suspect, it is the above and much, much more.Some people seem to have found this film to be slow or even boring. Perhaps, they expected battle scenes and non-stop violence. I myself love to watch a good, gung-ho war movie, but I also enjoy a film which can portray the real impact of war on ordinary people as well as those who actually go into combat.This work shows the very real emotional and physical trauma experienced by those caught up in such a horrific situation. The stress of not knowing what has happened to a loved one. The bitter release of learning of their death. And the heartless manoeuvres of Nazis and Stalinists cynically plotting to gain advantage for their regimes no matter the cost in hypocrisy to their own warped ideology, never mind the sheer sociopathic insanity of their actions. The mechanical nature of the murders themselves is wonderfully and horribly portrayed, and is set into stark relief by juxtaposition with the real humanity displayed by the victims and their relatives elsewhere in the piece.

Movie Review OK, I may have a spoiler so beware!!! Anyway, if you're a history buff, especially of WWII, you probably already know the story behind the Katyn forest. Nevertheless, it occurred to me while watching this film that the Polish army was made up of about 8-10% Jews, which was roughly the equivalent percentage of the population. And if you've read first-hand accounts about German-held POWs at the very beginning of the war (for example, the Shoah project), then you realize that Polish soldiers underhandedly betrayed their Jewish (and Polish) brethren soldiers to the Germans in exchange for extra food, blankets, shoes, or what have you. Not all but enough did. There is no mention of this in the film. However, the film makes a point that the Polish POWs held by both the Germans and Soviets were Gentiles, probably Catholic. And while I'm not belittling what happened to pro-Western Polish partisans during both the German and the Soviet occupation of Poland, it seemed a little strange those that had influence in the film ignored that nearly every Jew in Poland was either murdered or, had they survived the war, emigrated to Israel after-wards. Therefore, one's neighbors' apartments were looted and taken over had they been owned by Jews of Poland. And while the plight of the families of those murdered by the Soviets at Katyn is no small tragedy, it really pales in comparison to that of Polish Jews. I understand that this is a story about Katyn. But the irony of course is that while some in Poland were no doubt happy about the Jews being deported and gassed, their Christian brothers, who happened to be their neighbors in Germany, occupied a predominantly Christian country (Poland) and brutally murdered very many Gentile Polish civilians as well. That is the irony that no one talks about. Just food for thought.

Andres Salama Veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda take on the Katyn Massacre, the 1940 execution in a few days (probably a world record in mass murder) of some 20,000 Polish officers captured during the previous year invasion of Eastern Poland by the Soviet Union (in complicity with Nazi Germany who had invaded the western part of Poland).As the movie begins, the Polish officers are being transported in trains to the Soviet Union as prisoners. Meanwhile the Germans are also doing mischief in their controlled part of Poland, detaining the professors of Krakow University and sending them to concentration camps. After a brief interlude in World War II, the movie moves on to the post war. In new communist Poland, when one of the widows of the slain officers tries to inquire to authorities about his fate, she is told is better to kept quiet. The movie ends with a recreation of some of the executions.Aimed primarily at a Polish audience, this is a well made film, with good production values, but also curiously (for lack of a better word and given the subject matter) bloodless (the most moving part of the film is a real Nazi newsreel that shows the mass graves being exhumed by the Germans for propaganda purposes). I think it could have benefited by being less restrained and more polemical. Still, a worthy and interesting film.

secondtake Katyn (2007)A striking, gorgeous, sad sad movie.I'm not sure I like the idea that this is a deeply poetic movie about such genocidal horrors. But it is, beyond the usual. It's downright gorgeous, and lyrical, and timeless. It's quite an extraordinary visual experience, and it moves through beautiful forested and old world urban landscapes that are wonderful to just look at.But that's not the point at all. Or at least, the mass murder by the Soviets of Polish officers in WWII is made more horrible by placing the crimes against such beauty. It amplifies how really wrong it is. That war, and the crimes of war, are inherently against nature. And good moral sense.The pace is what you might call elegiac. That is, it is not quite slow, but it moves as a boat down a river might, with eloquence. I'm not sure that's enough, in the long run, to make it sublime (as sublime as it intends) but is really is close to a kind of cinematic poetry.There are many great performances here, none of them splashy. There are beauties here (women and men both) but no star power, nothing distracting. What matters most of all is a reminder, a realignment even, about historical facts, and the cruelty of the Soviets against the Poles, even as they were fighting the Nazis. Then of course Poland was under Soviet rule for decades, so a movie like this was only possible recently. And a movie this powerful, and this disturbing, and this beautiful, is remarkable. Watch it closely