It seems original footage from the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 has been colorized and combined into a film about the uprising. Although it's been set in the framework of a fictional narrative, the images are absolutely real and authentic. These are the rebels who took on the might of Nazi Germany, and who were slaughtered when Stalin refused to allow the Red Army to attack Warsaw to save them.
The Daily Mail reports:
Black and white silent footage taken during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis have been turned into a mesmerising feature movie with sound and colour.
The film is a riveting account of the fierce house-to-house fighting against the German army that began on August 1 and ended 63 days later with the insurgents surrendering, following the deaths of some 200,000 rebels and residents.
Titled Warsaw Rising, the film shows the crews that the Polish resistance Home Army sent fanning through the city to chronicle the uprising.
The only purely fictional elements are voiceovers presenting an imagined narrative that stitches together the footage: Two brothers scour the streets of the Polish city tasked with filming the 1944 rebellion of Warsaw residents against their Nazi occupiers, commenting on what they witness, from soup kitchens to scenes of destruction.
Cinematographers hired by the Warsaw Rising Museum added colouration and sound that give a real-life feel, while modern editing techniques provide a polished, fast-paced narrative.
The museum released the trailer of the film last month as part of the observances of the anniversary of the launch of the doomed struggle.
The film will be released in cinemas - in Poland and abroad - next year, before the uprising's 70th anniversary.
There's more at the link, including many photographs.
Here's a preview of the movie. Warning: some of the scenes will be disturbing to those who haven't seen war at first hand. These aren't Hollywood fakery; they're real. The men and women you see in them mostly died during the fighting. Very few survived.
Say a prayer with me, if you would, for the souls of all who died in that ghastly conflict. Proportionately to its land area and population, Poland probably suffered more than any other country during the Second World War. The main Nazi extermination camps were also located there. There's still a miasma of sorrow over the whole nation.
Peter
Poland's foreign policy in 1939 only made sense on the precondition that Poland was located in North Africa. The decision to rise up against the coccupying power only made sense if Stalin was a cuddly teddybear.
ReplyDeleteThere were no extermination camps.
That is one I will gladly pay money to see.
ReplyDeleteRobert, if you think that "there were no extermination camps", you're deluded beyond my capacity to help you.
ReplyDeleteI've visited them - or rather, what's left of them.
They were there, they were real, and the Holocaust was real. End of story.
Some years ago my parents visited Warsaw with a professor who had grown up near the modern site of the monument to the Uprising and had participated as a young teenager. He'd been a courier and guide in the sewers. He said the "water" had been up to his chest at times. IIRC, his commander sent him out of the city on a messenger run, and the prof could not get back in. Which is why he lived to retire from a career as an art history professor at UT-EP.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
Peter, I have some very disturbing news for Robert, I can't think of any way to break it to him gently, so I'll just have to say it straight.
ReplyDeleteRobert, the world is not flat!.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteRobert, you're full of it. Screw all those articles. They weren't there. My father was - and he never forgot it.
ReplyDeleteYou're deluded. You can either accept that, accept reality, and fix yourself; or you can live in cloud cuckoo land for the rest of your life. Your choice.
Cowardly scum.
ReplyDelete