meme and "Katyń"

[czeri]

melusinahp and posted here because it's spookily accurate):">

You Are 5: The Investigator

You're independent - and a logical analytical thinker. You love learning and ideas... and know things no one else does. Bored by small talk, you refuse to participate in boring conversations. You are open minded. A visionary. You understand the world and may change it. At Your Best: You are sharp, inventive, and creative. You have the skills to lead the world. At Your Worst: You are reclusive, weird, and a bit paranoid. Your Fixation: Greed Your Primary Fear: Being useless or incompetent Your Primary Desire: Being competent and needed Other Number 5's: Bill Gates, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Bjork, and Stephen Hawking.

What Number Are You?

Using the fact that I'm currently on holiday in Poland, I went to see Wajda's latest film "Katyń". God, I haven't cried so much during a film since "Brokeback Mountain". I started during the opening credits (it was the dedication to Wajda's parents that did me in, what with his father being one of the murdered officers), then I was crying during random scenes throughout the film, and the ending just about killed me. What's more, I couldn't stop crying once I got out of the cinema, which has never happened to me before.

Overall, I think it was a really good film, although I freely admit that all the crying might have impaired my objectivity. The structure seemed a bit loose some of the time, but all the various plots did come together, so it was fine. I also loved that a lot of what was going on was understated and implied rather than shown (See, Greengrass? Not an anvil in sight. Watch and learn!). What I found particularly interesting was that it was mostly set in Cracow, giving a completely different perspective than most of the other Second World War films, which would be usually set either on the frontlines or in Warsaw, to show the pacification of the Ghetto and/or the Warsaw Rising. Here the battle scenes were nonexistent, and the film was better for it, since it gave the ending that much more power.

So yeah, I strongly recommend "Katyń", although I doubt anyone but maggie33 will ever have a chance to see it :-)