director Andrzej Wajda
screenplay (based on own story of the same name) Jerzy Stefan Stawiński
director of photography Jerzy Lipman
music Jan Krenz
with Teresa Iżewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Wieńczysław Gliński, Tadeusz Gwiazdowski, Stanisław Mikulski, Władysław Sheybal, Emil Karewicz, Teresa Berezowska
awards
Jury Special Prize at Cannes Film Festival, 1957
Golden Medal in the category of feature films made by young directors at the World Youth and Students' Festival in Moscow, 1957
Diploma of Merit at the International Film Festival in Ibadan, 1961
the Brazilian Association of Film Critics Award at the International Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, 1961
the Golden Duck (Złota Kaczka), ‘Film’ magazine Readers Award, 1958
JERZY STAWIŃSKI, KANAL [KANAŁ]
The bog issued a gurgle. The light of Smukły’s torch became matt, began to pale, melting away in the vapours. The bubbling kept re-echoing along the slimy walls for a good while. Slowly, everything subsided into silence: only the moaning persisted. Zadra took out his cigarette case again, but quickly tucked it away in a panicky gesture. Next to him, Kula was panting for breath. Someone in the back slowly slumped down. Don’t sit down! – Zadra called out. – The air’s worse down there, you won’t get up. The man who had sat down jumped to his feet again. They all sank their heads. Soiled rags and parts of their bodies were visible underneath their torn coveralls. The bandages looked like mourning-bands. They were shivering with cold.
ANDRZEJ WERNER, TELEVISION ACADEMY OF POLISH FILM [TELEWIZYJNA AKADEMIA FILMU POLSKIEGO]
The debate about the Warsaw Uprising was resumed after 1956, becoming one of the most important issues for the Polish Film School as well as for the Polish culture of that time. It could not be conducted freely (…), yet its overall genuineness cannot be questioned. (…) True, Wajda’s film is a film about an absolute defeat, horrifying and surely unnecessary. ‘Abandon All Hope’- this inscription keeps accompanying the heroes. (…) And yet, despite everything, Wajda’s film is a film about heroism. (…) Wajda does not evaluate {his heroes} from the outside. The ironic distance is rather wavering here (…), awareness emerges above the level of the presented events only to find out that in fact it is inside them, bound by the same ties, by the need of faithfulness. [Therefore] the beautiful final scene of Zadra’s climbing down into the canal was filmed by Wajda in a pompous tonality. The image of the grating, separating Stokrotka and Korab from the opposite Praga bank of the Vistula, refers to knowledge which was a censorship-imposed taboo. For we do know who was marking time on that bank until the Uprising would bleed to death.
history periods
