A Generation

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A Generation
A Generation VHS cover
Directed by	Andrzej Wajda
Written by	Bohdan Czeszko
Starring	Tadeusz Lomnicki Urszula Modrzynska
Release date(s)	January 25, 1955 (Poland release)
Running time	83 min
Language	Polish
IMDb profile

A Generation (Polish: Pokolenie) is a Polish film released in 1955, directed by Andrzej Wajda.

This is Wajda's first film and the opening installment of his World War II trilogy, which is completed by Ashes and Diamonds and Kanal. A Generation is set in Wola, a working-class section of Warsaw, in 1942 and tells the stories of two young men at odds with the Nazi occupation of Poland. The young protagonist, Stach (Tadeusz Lomnicki), is living in squalor on the outskirts of the city and carrying out wayward acts of sabotage and rebellion. He finds work at a German workshop, where he becomes involved in an underground communist cell guided by the beautiful Dorota (Urszula Modrzynska). An outsider, Jasio Krone (Tadeusz Janczar), the temperamental son of an artisan, is initially reluctant to join the struggle but finally commits himself, running relief operations in the ghetto.

On its face, the film is a coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, delivering a brutal portrait of the human cost of war. But as with all of Wajda's films, Polish history and the individual's struggle in the face of crushing political circumstances are just below the surface. In A Generation, as in Ashes and Diamonds, the conflict between the communists and the nationalist Home Army, each representing a diametrically opposed view of Poland's future, are set on a collision course. For Stach, his work for the resistance is part of a larger class war and the struggle for communism. But even if the film is seeks to paint a realist portrait, Wajda fails in his conceit and divulges ulterior motives, as the leftist resistance formed a minuscule part of the overall anti-Nazi movement in Poland during the war. This and the other two films of Wajda's wartime trilogy stand as a monument to the director's genius. They sought, on the one hand, to conjure up a myth of a communist underground movement which never truly existed, and, on the other, to demonize the popular and anti-communist Home Army.