This is an excellent movie. It tells the story of the last stages of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis. A small unit of Polish Resistance fighters are ordered to fall back to a central position by going through the sewers. Most of the actions happens in the eerie confines of the sewers, which creates a very gripping atmosphere. However, the most interesting aspect of the movie is the character development. All of the characters are so different and changeable. No stereotypical characters in this movie!Andrzej Wajda is a truly great director. He is able to make unique movies based on the character development, rather than relying on gimmicks to gain the audience's attention. In this movie you never know what is ultimately going to happen to the resistance fighters until the final scenes.

This is a movie that can be appreciated more than enjoyed. It is a story dating to September, 1944, at the end of the Warsaw uprising. A company of Polish resistance fighters is followed in their last hours. As the company walks by the camera in an initial scene the voice-over is, "These are the heroes of the tragedy. Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives." This is a risky way to start the movie, since it takes away any sense of hope that might be had for these people, but the effect is to accentuate identification with their fate.The film is divided into two parts, the first part taking place in a bombed out house on the outskirts of Warsaw. The fighters know their fate if they stay there and fight against the overwhelming German forces. The leaders are agreeable to fighting to the end, but the command comes from headquarters to retreat. The retreat is to be through the sewers to a liberated part of the the city. The second part of the movie details the slog through the noisome cavernous sewers. If this sounds rather grim, be advised that it is. Many times throughout the ordeal I kept saying to myself, "Just hang in there, you can get through this." Dante's Inferno came to my mind before the sensitive musician in the company delivered the lines, "Thither we come, and there down in the moat I saw a people smothered in a filth that out of human privies seemed to flow."So, what are the rewards of seeing this through? For me there were two: learning a bit of history and appreciating the film as a work of art. From having viewed director Wajda's war trilogy, "A Generation," "Kanal," and "Ashes and Diamonds," as well as the later "Katyn," I have learned a tiny bit about Polish history. More than I would probably have known otherwise, since I doubt that I would have sought this information out on my own. It is estimated that over 200,000 people lost their lives in the Warsaw uprising, so Wajda has done his part in insuring that this grave event will not be lost in the mists of time.As a piece of film-making, this ranks highly. I am not sure whether the filming in the sewers was done on sets or in actual sewers. I suspect the former, but the result seems real enough and I have to believe that getting the lighting right was a challenge. Wajda takes full advantage of black and white photography to accentuate faces and silhouetted figures, capturing the emotions of the characters as well as their claustrophobic conditions.When the unrelenting bleakness started to seem overplayed and onerous, I reflected on the fact that I was getting about a 0.001% hint of the real experience. The Criterion Collection DVD provides an excellent print, especially given that this film is over fifty years old. The DVD extras are well worth a watch. There is a half hour interview with Wajda and another half hour interview, conducted by Wajda, with Warsaw uprising survivor Jan Nowak-Jezioranski. This latter interview is informative, offering some details on the complexity of the big picture, like how the Soviets halted their advance toward Berlin in order to let the Germans finish off the Poles, paving the way for Soviet post-war control. But the delay prevented the Russians from capturing Berlin before the Allies. I wish there had been more background details in the actual film, like just where the company was initially and how far away from their destination they were.

Agnieszka Holland's recent "In Darkness" told the story of a Lwow sewer worker who hid the city's Jewish population from the Nazis. Andrzej Wajda's "Kanał" tells a similar story. Set during the Warsaw Uprising, it looks at some people who have to hide in the sewers. The existence of the three groups of people in this putrid setting is like a descent into the darkest depths of the human soul.This was the second installment of Wajda's War Trilogy, after "A Generation" and before "Ashes and Diamonds". All three serve to not only show the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Poland, but also show how the people push through even in the most desperate situations. In an interview, Wajda noted that the scene where Daisy and Korab find the bars represents the time that the Soviet army (presumably across the river) was approaching Warsaw but waited for the Nazis to actually depart the city so that it would be easier to take. The movie is as much an indictment of Stalinism as it is of Nazism.Anyway, it's definitely a great one. I recommend it.

In the 1944 Warsaw uprising, a Polish anti-Nazi resistance unit take refuge from their enemies in the city's system of sewers. Polish critics state that the film paved the way for other films of the Polish School of filmmakers.Kanal is an underrated entry in director Andrzej Wajda's war trilogy, but there is an extraordinary sense of claustrophobia in the dark, dark tunnels beneath Warsaw, and the heroism of these beleaguered partisans is stirring. Their fear of being discovered creates heart-stopping tension. Kanal earned Wajda the Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, solidifying his position as Poland's premier director.