From the moment of Katyn's release in Poland's theatres, this film has been a runaway hit, almost a national purgation of pain.
Dir: Andrzej Wajda / Poland / 2007 / 121 mins / Cert: 15A
Katyn is big cinema-sweeping, epic and, truth be told, a lot like other WWII films. That’s not to sound glib. A real-life tragedy is being excavated here: the 1940 execution of thousands of Polish professors and officers by Stalin-directed secret police in the woods outside Smolensk, Russia. (It took 50 years for Mikhail Gorbachev to even admit to his country’s role in the massacre.)
For the director, Andrzej Wajda, the 82-year-old master who honed his country’s cinema to its sharpest edge in the 1950s with movies like Ashes and Diamonds, this is a victory lap for him- Joshua Rothkopf / Time Out
