Stones for the Rampart

 

There are few, if any, countries that played a more integral part in World War II than Poland. It was their invasion by Germany that served as the catalyst for the beginning of the European theatre of conflict.  After the destruction of the main body of their army, their intelligence service and ferocious fighting units – particularly the pilots of the Polish Air Force during the Battle of Britain – proved absolutely vital for the Allied victory.

The strict censorship limitations of a Soviet communist rule following the end of the war until 1989 ensured that Poland’s resultant cinematic contribution to the canon of World War Two films is less than any other country that played such a significant part in the conflict.  Despite, and often fuelled by, this censorship, Poland provided some of the finest filmmakers of the post-war era in Polanski, Kieślowski, Holland, Żuławski and Wajda, with the latter in particular making arguably the greatest contribution.  After losing his own father in the Katyn massacre and living in the sewers of Warsaw as a member of the Polish resistance, Andrzej Wajda made one of the greatest war films of all time in Ashes and Diamonds. As part of his ‘War Trilogy’ with A Generation and Kanał, it remains the finest examples of Polish realism cinema.

The films made by these directors all had a sense of brutal authenticity surrounding them.  As well as Wajda’s wartime experiences, Polanski lost both parents to the holocaust, only surviving himself due to assuming a fake identity.  They were men and women that had lived and breathed the horrors of war, and were practising their craft in the ongoing hell of communist rule.

Since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, Polish cinema has taken a sharp turn toward a decidedly more American sensibility, and this unfortunately expands to its continuing output of films telling the remarkable stories of Poland’s heroic wartime exploits. 

Stones for the Rampart is based on Aleksander Kamiński’s contemporary novel Kamienie na szaniec, which was published by the Polish underground press in 1943 and describes the acts of sabotage and armed resistance carried out by the Polish underground movement, of which Kamiński himself was a key figure.

Director Robert Glinski unfortunately makes little use of the extraordinary source material, as his film adaptation is little more than a formulaic, Hollywood account of an otherwise interesting story.  Essentially just a rescue-and-revenge romp, it feels surprisingly hollow, although it does offer an interesting insight into the complexities of heroism and self-sacrifice.  Its slick cutting and high tempo execution make it both watchable and entertaining; but in terms of measuring up to its predecessors, it falls well short.

Anyone wanting to explore either Polish cinema history, or see more worthwhile cinematic accounts of the Polish resistance would be better served catching some of the BFI’s Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, which features the films of Wajda, Polanski and Kieślowski and is showing at BFI Southbank in London throughout the whole of May.  

Stones for the Rampart IMDb