Pokolenie (1955)

Cast: Tadeusz Lomnicki, Urszula Modrzynska, Tadeusz Janczar, Janusz Paluszkiewicz, Roman Polanski

Director: Andrzej Wajda

Rating: PG

Running Time: 84 min.

Synopsis: A Generation is the first of Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda's "underground trilogy"-and also Wajda's first-ever feature film. Originally titled Pokolenie, the film dissects the impact that World War II had on the youth of Poland. Tadevsz Lomnicki plays an impressionable young Warsaw resident who falls in love with resistance leader Ursula Modrzinska. The passion they feel towards their cause is inextricably entwined with the intensity of their feelings towards one another. During several crucial moments, the director contrasts the "official" version of wartime events with the actual facts (many experienced first-hand by Wajda), partly as a means of explaining the peacetime disillusionment of so many young Poles. As a result, the film was subject to an overabundance of government interference when it was first released. Watch closely in the Underground scenes of A Generation and you'll spot a young Roman Polanski.