Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > WWII > Genocide > Poland > Katyn (2007/Umbrella Entertainment Region Four/4/PAL DVD)

Katyn (2007/Umbrella Entertainment Region Four/4/PAL DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This DVD set can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Four/4 PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the review.

 

 

For decades, Andrzej Wajda has been an uncompromising voice in World Cinema and of Poland, his home country in classics like Ashes & Diamonds (1958), The Promised Land (1975) and many more.  Because he pulls no punches and appeases no shallow political group, his contributions have been ignored more than they should and new filmmakers who need to see his work usually don’t even know who he is.  Yes, the film schools are even failing him.  Now comes a film that took him many years to make and it is among his very best, Katyn (2007), now on DVD from Umbrella Entertainment.

 

So why the trouble in making it?  Because it is the untold ugly story of the mass murder that was going on in one of the ugliest chapters of many that occurred during WWII with the Poland annexed.  At the time, the Soviet Union was working with the Nazis and when 15,000 officers disappeared in 1940, no one knew where they had gone.  Ironically, when the Nazis invaded the USSR in the spring of 1943 when Hitler betrayed Stalin, the bodies turned up all over Russia’s Katyn Forest.  Of course, the USSR got Poland when the war was over and it remained communist until the fall of the USSR in the early 1990s.  It was only in 1990 that the KGB and Kremlin accepted official responsibility.

 

This film tells the story of how that betrayal occurred, how it affect the country which has been through more hell than just about any other in the 20th Century and lays bare the ugly truths that people still do not want to talk about or believe.  Wajda’s own father was killed in this purge so he had very personal reasons for bringing this story to life.  Using real life sources and his own long, personal, vivid experiences and ideas needing to be told, it is a strong film that has not received the acclaim and attention it deserves.  It is one of the key lost tales of WWII we do not hear enough of, but the master filmmaker has begun the process of correcting this glaring omission in a remarkable film that everyone should see.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image here was shot in Super 35mm film by Director of Photography Pawel Edelman, pulling off a challenging shoot throughout.  This was mastered in 4K digital and the results are a plus.  Unfortunately, the transfer here is a little softer than expected, but it is still a good looking and very convincing period shoot.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is very impressive and makes one wish a DTS track was included because this is a very smart multi-channel mix and is not just dominated by the Krzysztof Penderecki score.  Penderecki is a veteran composer whose scores include Alain Resnais’ time travel classic Je T’aime, je T’aime (1968) and he has not lost his touch or edge 40 years later.  Extras include the Polish Premiere, Original Theatrical Trailer, making of featurette and Wajda interviewed on the set of the film.

 

 

As noted above, you can order this PAL DVD import exclusively from Umbrella at:

 

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com