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Kanał

Play trailer Poster for Kanał 1961 1h 31m Drama War Play Trailer Watchlist
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100% Tomatometer 7 Reviews 93% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
During the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising following World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra (Wisczyslaw Glinski), but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts to stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

Critics Reviews

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Richard Brody The New Yorker 02/06/2017
The film turns combat-film clichs upside down. Go to Full Review
Ado Kyrou Positif 04/05/2022
Thus calmly and deliberately, I state: Wajda stands beside Luis Bunuel and Ingmar Bergman. He is in the line that goes from Louis Feuillade to Frank Borzage, and from Jean Vigo to Georges Franju. Go to Full Review
Fernando F. Croce CinePassion 06/23/2014
Flames up above and smoky streams below, the inverted Hades of occupied Warsaw Go to Full Review
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 04/05/2011
A
Wajda's second movie, set in Warsaw in 1944, is politically significant and emotionally stirring Go to Full Review
Christopher Null Filmcritic.com 04/11/2005
4/5
may very well be Wajda's finest film Go to Full Review
Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews 01/29/2004
B
A picture of considerable worth. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Skirunr S @RT91525988 May 10 Nightmare is an understatement. Looking for a Hollywood formula blockbuster film, look someplace else. Looking for a genuine artistic piece of humans fight and the will of survival you are hard put to find a better film. War is hell, this story of it is guaranteed to be like no other war movie you have ever or will ever see. See more Taylor L @RT77267842 02/19/2023 I don't think Andrzej Wajda likes war very much. Kanał is not a very happy movie, but the Warsaw Uprising was not a very happy time. The German military, knowing that the end of the conflict (and their defeat) was lurking on the horizon, fought street by street against Polish resistance forces, leveling the city and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process while the Red Army waited patiently at the city limits. Wajda presents the victims of this extermination campaign as patriots that slowly devolve in the hellish landscape of filth that they're forced into, as a small group of resistance fighters attempt to retreat deeper into Warsaw via the fetid sewer system. The group slowly dissipates and fractures, with one or two breaking off as the war above (real or imagined) slowly gets to them, until by the end they find themselves alone and mentally broken. No Victorian ideals of honor in combat, the industrialized and effecient nature of a new war has no place for those. Cramped and suffocating, Kanał is a vicious wartime film that uses relatively few bullets to convey the horrors of war, and it's beautifully shot even if most of it takes place in darkness and shit. A bleak masterpiece in human desperation and unyielding cruelty. (4/5) See more 03/24/2018 Another brilliant study of futility of war from Andrzej Wanda. See more 02/15/2015 This atmospheric film set in the sewers during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Similar to Rossellini's 'Rome, Open City' the film has a docu-drama feel to it lending the film great authenticity. Due to Wajda's masterful direction, the film transcends the war thriller genre and divulges into more existential aspects of war and at times harnesses an almost supernatural feel. The film has the renowned 'Polish film school' of the 1950s trademark brilliance in cinematography and as with other Wajda films is amalgamated with symbology. Although some of the acting may seem dated it can be forgiven as this style of overplaying parts was quite common at the time. The film doesn't quite reach the same brilliance as Wajda's subsequent film 'Ashes and Diamonds' but is still a film that cineastes must see. See more 12/30/2014 The Polish resistance is trapped in the Warsaw ghetto trying to survive the Nazi onslaught during the genocide of the ghetto. As a last desperate resort they are given orders to retreat through the sewers. Can they survive? Nightmarish, intense and harrowing is this searing, extremely brutal film that gets a 100% critics approval rating from Polish director Andrzej Wajda. YES, it's a masterpiece but can you stomach it ? See more 12/24/2014 " No body have a home ' while they were in the sewer " My Piano is out of tone " * Real caracter psychology reactions * The Lieutenant killed the civiian soldjer (might Wajda want to say that main characters even got a bad motivation - even he didn't care for the recieptor point of view when he shows empathy ) * The War Triology goes up and up. * He showes another side of love, another interests, another meaning. * The senes of war and bombed area and soldjer positions were so REAL. ** Wajda capture the weekness and victories, not only the vectorie. i loved when they get out of the sewer and arrested directly by the germans. See more Read all reviews
Kanał

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Movie Info

Synopsis During the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising following World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra (Wisczyslaw Glinski), but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts to stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.
Director
Andrzej Wajda
Screenwriter
Jerzy Stefan Stawinski
Distributor
Kingsley-International Pictures Inc.
Production Co
Zespół Filmowy "Kadr"
Genre
Drama, War
Original Language
Polish
Release Date (Theaters)
May 9, 1961, Original
Release Date (DVD)
Apr 26, 2005
Runtime
1h 31m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.37:1)