The final film shot in his native country by Polish director Aleksander Ford, this work was entered, in hopes of winning a prize, at the 1965 Cannes Festival, although its chances had for the most part been considered as feeble; and such was the result, not only because of Festival competition, but additionally due to its meandrous narrative and intermittently ragged post-production efforts. The film is taken from a play in an existential vein by Leon Kruczkowski, Polish man of letters/politician, and, as in the stage piece, focuses upon the affiliation between those who conquer, and their defeated foes; a potentially equivocal subject, to be sure, yet since very little is made clear pertinent to the interior textures of the primary characters, a viewer may be pitted against the mandates of logic in lieu of noting its characteristics. This ambiguity scores the script's depiction of the various roles from the film's first frame, its storyline set in 1945, as it illustrates the effect made upon a German family by five Polish soldiers during their "first day of freedom", freshly discharged from a German Army prisoner-of-war camp. The family of interest consists of a physician widower, with his three daughters. The Poles are led by an officer, and the dialogue between the Germans and the soldiers concerns such thematic material as honour, integrity, culpability, and condonation, each topic being discussed in the broadest of terms. Scripted dialogue is, in fact, the spine of the film, through its initial portion, and appropriately so, since the play is an erudite exercise, fabricated by a man who successfully fused dual vocations: dramatist and public official. Unfortunately, the too-often politically overzealous and paranoiac makeup of fanatical Polish Communist Party bureaucrat Ford establishes a consistent turning away from the labyrinthine confrontation that he had carefully created and, after conceding to audiences that the "defeated" Germans had a good deal of fight left in them, issues of psychologic intensity that he has raised become lost amid stereotypical battle scenes. A fairly smart beginning skids towards an ending that weighs against what has preceded it. Ford's propensity for left-wing proselytization was eventually defeated by himself, thereby effectively terminating his directorial career. The film is erratically edited, but nonetheless benefits from generally able performances by the cast, with Tadeusz Lomnicki a standout as a conflicted Polish officer. Camera-work and lighting are also estimable for this rather difficult to locate production that has been released solely in VHS format, by Polart. This film is shot in black and white, and there are English subtitles of largely sufficient accuracy.
