Written by Bohdan Czeszko
Starring Tadeusz Lomnicki, Urszula Modrzynska, Tadeusz Janczar, Janusz Paluszkiewicz
The debut film for director Andrzej Wajda is also the first part of his unofficial “war trilogy” (there are no character or storyline connections between the three films), depicting Poland at different stages during World War II. A well-made first feature that kind of pales beside the second and third installments. Not a bad movie, but I have no insights to offer and can’t think of anything funny to say about it. One more movie off the list. Next.
Wait, that’s a terrible blog entry. Where is the value for my reader’s time spent indulging me in my obsessive quest to watch all these DVDs and report on them? This isn’t Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. I have to do more.
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OK, so after much research, here are some Interesting Facts I discovered about A Generation:
-- Roman Polanski is in this movie somewhere.
-- So are Alfred Hitchcock, Amelia Earhart, and one of the stunt double vehicles from Herbie Rides Again.
-- Despite the fact that director Wajda and all of his cast and crew were native Polish speakers, only pig latin was spoken while filming in case there were still any listening devices nearby left over from the recent occupation. This meant dubbing all dialogue in post-production. To more closely match the rhythms of the Polish language, the footage was played in reverse while the actors recorded their lines. So during production, all actions that included dialogue had to be performed backwards. Thankfully the actors were up to the task. One would never know any better by watching the final film unless his or her attention is distracted by all the backward-walking animals and bullets going back into their guns.
That’s it. I got nothing else. My apologies to Andrzej Wajda. He really is a good director.
