Katyn (DVD)

Katyn (2007) by Polish director Andrzej Wajda. The names and faces of this film's stars will be unfamiliar to American audiences, but the drama is palpable. Beginning in 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Polish soldiers and other citizens find themselves trapped between the German occupying forces and advancing Soviet troops -- neither of which has the Poles' welfare foremost in mind. Sometime in 1940, some 12,000 Polish officers and intellectuals were massacred by the Soviets and buried in a mass grave in the Katyn Forest. During the war, the Germans use the slaughter as a propaganda point against the Soviets. After the war, the Soviets cynically blame the mass murder on the Germans. Poles living in Soviet-occupied Poland after the war find that they must agree with the Soviet line or face prison, or death. It's a tragic film without a happy ending, but worth seeing. Main shortcoming is mixture of Polish, German and Russian spoken during film, requiring sometimes complicated subtitle solutions. Grade: A-