Waste of time

Highly Overrated But Still Good

From my favorite movies..

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

a delicate subject. and an impeccable translation on the screen. in few words, one of the films who looking for reconquest the lines, emotions and tragedies of the recent history. and this did it not exactly a lesson of history but a kind of exorcism. because it is a courageous exercise to say the truth behind the political interests or the ideological colors. a story about people and decisions and a war like a drop of amber. it is not easy to say why but, certainly, it is a film who must see. not as translation of a bitter moment in images. maybe, not for the artistic virtues. but for the the simple motif to discover the truth who remains foundation of the present reality.

This film from the famed Polish director Andrzej Wajda was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language movie. I can see why--it was very well made. However, I must warn you, that although the film is exceptionally well done and important, it is also among the most brutal I've seen in a long time--with lots of closeup shots of Polish soldiers getting executed in the most graphic way possible."Katyn" begins during the invasion of Poland in September, 1939. Although folks outside Poland today now about the Germans invading, a lot of films and history books fail to discuss that the Soviets did the same--crashing in this relatively defenseless nation in a power grab. In the process, they rounded up all the Polish officers--sending them off to prisoner of war camps and, ultimately, to their deaths inside the USSR at a place called Katyn Forest (hence the name of the film).Much of the film is set after the massacre and has to do with the Soviet attempt to whitewash the incident by blaming the Germans. However, a few people in this film refuse to accept the party line--much to their regret because the Soviets intended to sell this lie no matter who they had to hurt to get this false message across.Because it is so important to set the record straight historically speaking, I am very glad that "Katyn" was made. Poles and non-Poles need to face facts and accept reality. But, as I said above, this exceptionally well made film ALSO tells the story in all its brutality--with lots and lots of closeups of Polish officers having their brains blown out by Soviet criminals (I am not sure if they technically were soldiers or NKVD or KGB, but this clearly is a crime against humanity--so I'll stick with the word 'criminal'). Worth seeing but a film to keep from your children and the easily disturbed.

Based on a true incident that took place in the Katyn forest during World War 2 where Russian army slaughtered 20,000 Polish prisoners of war and then put the blame of the massacre on Nazi Germany, Katyn tells its harrowing tale through the eyes of Polish officers' wives, mothers, sisters & daughters, but on an overall scale, this film really failed to live up to my expectations. The depiction of Russians & Germans and their blame game is captured very well and there are some tense moments also which it is able to deliver but this motion picture kind of loses itself in the middle in which the plot feels highly fragmented but then in the final moments, Katyn makes an impressive return to deliver a brutal, powerful & haunting final punch to bow out with some respect.

"Katyn" is a fictional treatment of an incident that is seared into the memory of every Pole. During the period of cooperation between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, Soviet troops took 12,000 Polish officers into the forest and killed them one by one, shooting them in the back of the skull. The Soviets claimed the murders had been committed by the Nazis and after the USSR seized Poland, it became very dangerous for anyone to blame the Soviets although the truth was widely known.This film personalizes this horrendous tale by turning it into fiction. The Polish officers and members of their families become real people, and the film tells vividly what happened to each of its characters: those who were slaughtered, those who hoped against hope that their husbands, brothers and sons had escaped the fate of their comrades, and those who knew and insisted on telling the truth (which was ultimately acknowledged not long ago by the Russians).The movie incorporates some material from newsreels filmed when the bodies were found. But the rest is a meticulous and unsparing recreation by director Andzrej Wadja and his team. The cast, although generally unknown to American audiences, is excellent and the sense of terror is palpable, particularly after the Soviet Union has taken control of Poland and is determined to crush anyone who says that they and not the Nazis, perpetrated the atrocities at Katyn.This film is no more fun to watch than a movie about the Holocaust but it preserves an important historical event more effectively than any documentary could possibly do. In case you're wondering, I'm not Polish. But I believe this is an event that must not be brushed out of history.