The End of the Men of War in ‘Ashes and Diamonds’
Andrzej Wadja’s film Ashes and Diamonds (1958) is a film that takes a politically heavy-handed look at the immediate aftermath of World War II in Poland. Wadja’s film particularly zeroes in on the lower ranks of the various Polish and Russian factions following the expelling of German forces from Poland in 1945. When political intrigue and divide are usually brought to mind, we think of bureaucracy and men in ties, sitting at grand tables to discuss the outcome. In Ashes and Diamonds, we see this bureaucracy at a cultural crossroads Post-WWII, and the execution of the bureaucracy from soldiers and minor-level politicians. Allies become enemies. Wadja focuses his plot on an assignment given to Maciek, a Polish Assassin, to execute Konrad Szczuka, a member of the Worker’s Party with whom he had fought the Nazis in the war that has just ended. Wadja shows the celebration of the end of fighting by those who did not fight, while those who did fight, like Maciek, are left to grapple with the memories of fallen comrades, only to step in line and continue like business as usual. Only the men in suits are allowed to celebrate.
Ashes and Diamonds is properly recognized for its visual allusions to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). The recurring use of deep focus shots, mirrored walls, intense backlighting, and long POV takes all harken back to Welles’ masterpiece. But in my own viewing, I found much more similarities between Wadja’s work and a different Welles film: The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed. There are parallels between Wadja’s and Reed’s films that focus on plunging the viewer directly into this weary post-WWII tension, where new powers are toppling and taking over the old. For The Third Man, the focus was on Vienna and the division of the country between Britain, France, The United States, and The Soviet Union from the perspective of an outsider. In Ashes and Diamonds, we are actually put into the Polish perspective through Maciek and the other Polish characters, as they move from the fascist regime under Nazi Germany to the new authoritarian regime under the Soviet Union. Despite these different approaches to similar themes, the two films explore the similar post-WWII dynamics. The characters are unfamiliar with the new political landscape. Maciek is forced to kill former allies within a matter of days. Holly Martins has to navigate his investigation between the different zones and different authorities within them. The Polish agents must not question and must continue to carry out their duties despite the end of the war and the behest of the celebrating leaders, and Holly sees the full depth of the way the criminals and racketeers of Vienna prosper while the remainder of the populace struggle and live in rubble. The same circumstances, similar themes, different approaches. Holly sees what it is as a Westerner who gets to go home after his struggle is done. Maciek has to stay and ultimately die from the transition from one invader to the next.
Where I saw Ashes and Diamonds really diverge from that more Hollywood approach, however, is its restrain in its settings and locations. Asides from the opening and closing acts of the film, there are only two or three settings that are heavily utilized in the film. There is the hotel, where Maciek waits to carry out his assignment and where the Party Members are celebrating, and there is the destroyed church where Maciek and Krystyna convene. While some might see this lack of ever-changing location in a film dull, Wadja makes such a choice work wonders. Instead of being distracted by the glamour and chaos of going from place-to-place within the city, by having the main characters situated in these few locations, we can focus on them, and how they are feeling, instead of being distracted by all of the movement. We feel Maceik’s struggles with his work because he has the time to stop, sit, and contemplate. And we sit right next to him, contemplating as well.
Choices like this in Ashes and Diamonds are why the film works for me. Maciek is by far the carrying force for the film because of the life breathed into the character from Andrzej Wadja’s direction and the magnificent performance given by Zbigniew Cybulski. Maciek, the man who wears sunglasses because of the months spent in sewers as a resistance fighter, struggles with his new reality as an assassin in a new world after WWII. Where some stories may end in an act of defiance against authority; disobeying orders because of the moral good of the decision, Maciek cannot escape his fate. He struggles with his decision, yes, but ultimately carries out his order: to assassinate a former ally. After that point, he is chased, shot, and dies alone in a trash heap. A tragic end to a character who was not able to live without war.
