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The first of Wajda’s unplanned war trilogy (with “Kanal” and “Ashes and Diamonds”) offers a strikingly unsentimental appraisal of heroism in this tale of a cocky Polish youth who decides to fight the Nazis after he falls for a pretty Resistance leader. Barely out of their teens, he and his brash friends approach their first mission - to help escapees during the Warsaw gheto uprising - like a game of cops and robbers. Inevitably the game turns deadly and the innocence of a generation is lost under the gruelling conditions of war. Adapted by Bohdan Czeszko from his novel. In Polish with English sub-titles.
Cast includes Roman Polanski
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How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
308164
Language
Polish
Audience classification
MA
Subject categories
Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Foreign language films
Armed Forces, Military, War & Weapons → World War, 1939-1945 - Poland
Feature films → Feature films - Poland
History → Warsaw (Poland) - History - Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings, 1943
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Black and White
Holdings
VHS; Access Print (Section 1)