One of the keys to understanding the canon of Andrzej Wajda (b.1926) is an awareness of the tradition of Polish romanticism, of the extent to which Wajda completely surrenders to its bleakest aspects and the extent to which he tries to transcend it. The denial of full nationhood to Poland from the 1700s to the 1900s created a tradition in its art of imminent doom, heroic martyrdom in the nationalist struggle, and a sometimes delirious cultivation of style and elegance.
Andrzej Wajda, as the son of a serving cavalry officer would have been particularly privy to this tradition. On the other hand, he came to maturity during the second World War, where he served briefly in one of the Resistance groups, and received his higher education if post-revolutionary Poland, the ideology of which was adamantly opposed to all the things the Polish Romantic tradition stood for.
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| Pokolenie was Wajda's Sgt Peppers moment |
The tension between the two ideologies could not have been more evident than in Wajda's first feature, his diploma film at the state film school in Pokolenie (1955). Set in Lodz, its theme of the growth of political and personal maturity of a young working-class milksop was a common one in socialist realist art since the Thirties. It is an extremely capable film on every level and one can easily fathom its evident socio-political theme; its assured handling of the resources of cinema; the superb playing of its actors; and the general poetry and unabashed simplicity of feeling. But perhaps what is most interesting is its contradictions, the central of which is its veering between socialist realism, rational, progressive, optimistic, on the one hand, and on the other, Polish Romanticism, regressive and pessimistic.