Kanał

Having finished with Summer Under the Stars, we get to that part of the year on TCM where Saturday nights see a repeat of the Two for One interviews that ran during the spring. That also means the chance for stuff I recorded during the spring airings to get a mention new since the movies will be airing again. The guest presenter for tonight is Bill Hader, whom you may recall having done Essentials Jr. for a couple of years back in the 2010s. He selected two foreign films, both of which I recorded, so we'll start off with the first one, Kanał at 8:00 PM.

Kanał is the Polish word for "sewer", and the movie tells us about an episode from the Warsaw Uprising that is in part set in the sewers under the streets of Warsaw. For those who don't know the precise history, Nazi Germany attacked Poland from the west on September 1, 1939, and conquered the western half of the country including Warsaw by the end of the month, while the Soviets overran the eastern half and annexed it. Recall that the Soviets and Germans were allies under the Molotov von-Ribbentrop Pact until June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1944 with the D-Day invasion it was clear that Germany was going to lose the war, so on August 1, 1944, the Polish Underground started an uprising called the Warsaw Uprising.

As Kanał opens, it's late September, 1944, and equally clear that the uprising is doomed to failure. A narrator tells us that we're witnessing the last hours in the lives of several participants in the uprising. Lt. Zadra (meaning "Splinter", all of the characters have nicknames instead of real names) leads a platoon of soldiers to a house in a portion of Warsaw near the front line but not fully bombed out yet from where he's hoping to moiunt a defense. Among the soldiers are Korab; a record-keeper; a female guide (not uncommon in the uprising) named Stokrotka (Daisy); and others, with Vladek Sheybal playing a composer we presume wasn't intending to fight in the uprising but got caught up in it.

Unfortunately, the house is in a position that's quickly going to be indefensible too, so the decision is made to retreat, except that the only way to retreat is to go underground into the sewers and come out in a different section of Warsaw. This requires knowing where the various sewer lines lead, as they're not particularly well-mapped. Complicating matters is that Korab has picked up an injury and cannot keep pace with the rest of the soldiers. Stokrotka offers to stay behind and help Korab as everybody else can move faster and she knows the sewers like the back of her hand.

The sewers are, of course, dark and filthy, looming around the Poles almost like as much of the enemy as the Germans are. There's also always the possibility of the sound the Polish soldiers make with the movements carrying to the manholes where Germans might be able to hear them, while the darkness could lead them to get lost as well as inducing panic. It's unrelentingly grim, even if we didn't know that the uprising was dommed to failure.

Kanał is a movie that's very well made, although it's a bit tough to rate because of how uncomfortable it can be to watch. It's also complicated by the fact it was made under Communism back in 1957. One aspect of the uprising was the hope that they could hold off the Germans long enough to make a Soviet advance quicker and therefore liberate the city more quickly. However, the Soviets felt that it was more convenient to let the Poles be the ones losing forces to try to stop the Germans. The increased the enmity the Poles felt towards Soviets, but was something that couldn't be mentioned in 1957.