War Trilogy, The: Three films by Andrzej Wajda (BLU-RAY)

UK Import.  Blu-Ray is Region Free. Should play on any Blu-Ray player.

The set includes A Generation (Pokolenie, 1955), Kanał (1957), and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i Diament, 1958). These celebrated films are presented from stunning new 2K restorations, with A Generation being released for the first time ever on Blu-ray.

A Generation (Pokolenie)

Andrzej Wajda's debut feature chronicles the lives of a group of young friends who, having grown up in German-occupied Poland, find their places within the Resistance army fighting against their Nazi oppressors. Taking inspiration from the Italian neorealist movement, and brilliantly photographed by Jerzy Lipman, A Generation changed Polish cinema forever – delivering a brutal elegy to the human cost of war.

Kanał

An unforgettable and harrowing depiction of the last days of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the invading German Nazis, Kanał follows a band of surviving Polish Home Army soldiers who take to the sewers to avoid capture. Wajda's second feature is both a thrilling WWII adventure and a vivid, melancholic testament to lives lost and martyr heroes born. Kanał remains strikingly fresh in conceit and execution, and presents Wajda's most potent mixture of lyricism and horror.

Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i Diament)

Wajda's most renowned film and landmark of international cinema, Ashes and Diamonds takes place on the final day of WWII, as a young Resistance fighter is assigned to assassinate a Communist official. Perfectly realised, the film is also renowned for its electrifying, iconic, era-defining performance by Zbigniew Cybulski. This vision of Poland poised between the horrors of the recent past and an uncertain future, and the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in a time of transition, is arguably Wajda's greatest work.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• A Generation (Pokolenie), Kanał, and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i Diament) - each film presented from new 2K restorations.
• Archival interviews with Andrzej Wajda
• Introductions to each film by Polish cinema expert Michał Oleszczyk
• Audio commentaries on all three films by Michael Brooke
• Andrzej Wajda's early short films:
• The Bad Boy (Zły chłopiec, 1951)
• Ceramics from Ilza (Ceramika Ilzecka, 1951)
• While You're Sleeping (Kiedy ty śpisz, 1953)
• Individual booklets with new writing on each film by authors and Polish cinema specialists Ewa Mazierska, Tony Rayns and Peter Hames
• New and improved English subtitle translations
• REGION-FREE
• AND MORE...