Kanal (Wajda, 1956) is the story of a doomed Polish resistance company trying escape German occupied Warsaw. The film follows the members of the company in the last few hours of their lives, as they fight against the German army and descend into the sewers underneath the city to try to escape to freedom. The film focuses on the characters of Daisy, Sub Lieutenant Zorab, and Lieutenant Zadra as they make their way through the sewers, though there are several major characters that we are introduced to in the first shot of the film, and we follow their fated journey into the sewers.
The film deals with the breakdown of communication between the soldiers in the sewer, and between the commanding officers and the troops they are supposed to be commanding. It also looks at the relationships forged by the soldiers in battle.
The film follows the soldiers in their ‘final hours’ as they experience the terrors of the German invasion of the Mokotów district in Warsaw, although we don’t see any fighting and the Germans never venture into the sewer, we are constantly aware of the peril awaiting the resistance above them, mostly due to the sense of claustrophobia created by Wadja through the use of pans, lighting, noise and camera angles used while the resistance make their way through the sewers.
The first shot of the film shows us the destroyed district of Mokotów where the resistance company that we follow is based. The main credits and title sequence run over documentary footage of a ruined Warsaw, enforcing the immensity of the Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent battles that followed the insurrection, it also creates a stark contrast to the claustrophobia that the audience and the troops are subjected to throughout the majority of the film. The opening voiceover contained in these shots introduces each of the main characters and some of their traits, as well as letting the audience know what will become of the company before the events have unfolded; "Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives." The voiceover is strange because it uses different phrases to describe what we are seeing, at the end of the monologue the voice uses the phrase “their lives”, and then to describe Michael, the voice uses “he joined us yesterday”, leaving the origin and fate and the connection to the company of the voiceover unknown.
The shots accompanying the ghostly narration make use of long pan shots, shots that incorporate lots of action or background movement, again, contrasting the claustrophobic conditions experienced in the sewers of the title later in the film ‘…deep focus enables spectators to roam within the image and so propagates freedom…’1 The use of deep focus also allows us to see what is happening behind the main characters in the shot, many times when characters are having a conversation in front of the camera we can see other troops moving about behind them, again, contrasting with the tight camera angles and claustrophobic atmosphere created in the sewer. The shot that introduces us to the company that we follow through the film is a long tracking shot that follows the soldiers as they walk battle weary, into a makeshift base, fashioned from a disused hotel. The shot takes in all the surroundings that the soldiers walk through, and as well as introducing us to the main characters (Halinka, Kadra etc) it also allows us to see the other members of the company Zadra commands. While at the hotel base, a graveyard is frequently seen at the front of the hotel in tracking shots, foreshadowing the future of the company, and the Polish resistance.
In the shots outside of the sewers, the soldiers can walk freely past the camera and in and out of shot making the camera seem almost omniscient, allowing us to see anything at anytime, where as in the sewers, the soldiers rarely walk up to the camera and then past it, instead walking up to the camera and either stopping, or walking away from the camera until out of shot. ‘The moment the fighters move underground the camera loses its freedom to roam; the claustrophobia is emphasised when they now move past it…’2 While in the sewer the camera remains very still, and uses close range shots on the actors in frame (especially Daisy and Korab) to create the sense of claustrophobia felt by the characters.
Although the claustrophobia of the sewers is paramount towards the end of the film, the sense of claustrophobia is used in the first half of the film as well. When Michael (the artist) telephones his family in German occupied territory, the camera moves in for an extreme close up on Michael’s face when he realises his family are about to die. “There is a composer who manages to phone his wife in the centre, only to have the phone line cut off – presumably by the Gestapo.”3 The extreme close up coupled with dark lighting around Michael foreshadows the conditions in the sewer, as well as emphasising Michaels plight; listening to his family being murdered while being powerless to help them, leaving him trapped.
The idea of real life crossing into the cinematic scope has been used in Kanal; Michael’s phone call home is one example of a real event breaking into the story. Of course, the actual escape through the sewers did take place, but many other events in the film could have based on real life events, taken from the screen writer’s memory, who himself fought in the Polish Uprising. Real-life events are referenced throughout the film; the lack of ammunition and weapons for the Polish fighters is highlighted when Halinka receives a tiny pistol from Madry, it is further emphasised when Zadry comments on the state of the arms; “…pistols and grenades against tanks and bombers,” the documentary footage at the start of the film and the references to real events anchors the film in real-life, although the characters are fictional.
The scene where Kadra’s company enter the sewer uses images of civilians trying to enter to sewers to escape the advancing Germans, while one woman looks for her blonde daughter and pleading with Kadra’s unit not to leave.
Although we know, obviously, that a lot of film-making is fictional and rarely based on fact, the use of documentary footage and the re-telling of stories of the Polish Uprising in Kanal makes us question what is based on fact and what is entirely fictional, because Kanal is one of the few films about the Polish Uprising, the blurring of documentary and fiction film is easier to accomplish because of the lack of information or other points of view about the issues it presents.
The individual stories of the characters only emphasise their ultimate downfall, when the story splits into three after the company descend into the sewers we follow three narratives; that of Kula, Smuckly, Zadra and the rest of the company, Madry, Halinka and Michael and Daisy and Zorab. The three sets of characters all have the same objective: to reach the exit of the sewer in the middle of the city, but only one person, Daisy, knows the correct route through the labyrinth of tunnels underneath ruined Warsaw and appears to have the most common sense out of the company, when the other soldiers run and panic about the frequent gas attacks, Daisy calmly states, “Idiots, the sewers always smell of gas,” but instead of guiding her company through, she decides to stay with her injured lover, Korab, choosing to help him get to safety, although if she had stayed with her company, they all would have been saved. When Daisy and Korab finally reach the correct exit to the sewers, Korab is too weak to climb up and out to safety. If Daisy had stayed with her company, there would have been enough men to carry Korab out of the sewers. This is one of the many breakdowns in communication that destroys Kadra’s company. The most crucial and obvious breakdown is when Kula lies to Kadra about the state of his troops, this is one of three lies that has an impact on the members of the company, two of the three resulting in death, the first, Kula’s, not only results in his own death, but that of Kadra and the rest of the company. The second concerns Madry and Halinka. Earlier in the film we see Madry and Halinka in bed together, and it becomes evident that they appear to love each other. However, when Madry reveals that he has a wife and a daughter, or “something worth living for,” Halinka takes the gun that Madry had given to her previously and shoots herself, leaving Madry in the sewer alone. The lies of Madry and Kula result in their own deaths. Kula gets shot as a coward by the enraged Kadra, and Madry, we can presume, joins the rest of the dead Polish soldiers shot by the Germans waiting at the sewer exit.
When Madry exits the sewers we are treated to a comparison of the first few shots of the film, a pan shot reveals the dead and captured Poles being held at gunpoint by a German tank unit. Ironically, the German that strips Madry of his gun also takes away the only things he has to live for, his wife and child. Taking the photo and wedding ring he shows to Halinka in the sewer effectively robs him of his life and imposes the fact that he will be shot along with his comrades.
The lie told by Daisy to Korab is a lie of compassion. Although Daisy and Korab have made it to an exit, it is barred and they can only stare at their freedom which has been denied. Daisy insists that Korab keep his eyes closed, and describes green grass and trees that Korab imagined he was walking through earlier, although at the time, the realist in Daisy argued back, saying “A load of crap,” and destroying Zorab’s fantasy. The lie told by Daisy is told to keep Korab’s hope alive, she then holds him as he dies, the camera turning away to stare through the bars of the sewer.
The breakdown of communication in the command chain is also seen throughout the film. When Kadra is told of the plan to enter the sewer, he criticizes it, commenting throughout the film about the smallest of chances that he and his troops will survive the conflict even before they venture into the tunnels underneath the city. When he meets a fellow officer they talk about the battles, commenting that they might have a “good death,” Kadra goes on to say that his fellow officer speaks like a “true pole.”
The breakdown in communication with the commanding officers and their troops is highlighted when the company encounter an insane general in the sewer. At first, they can only hear unintelligible shouts that they barley recognise as human. When they discover the source of the noises, they discover an ex-general left at the bottom of the sewer, crying out. The general is later seen floating down the sewer by Daisy and Korab; the line of communications with the commanding officers above ground has been completely obliterated, and is floating away with the dead general.
As Coates states, the initial reason for the Polish Uprising is left completely omitted from Kanal and the main objective of the company is not to engage, but to evade the Germans at all costs, leaving the focus of the film on the characters, rather than what they are fighting for, and the breakdown of communication between the commanding officers and their troops, and the troops themselves.4
The last shot of the film is particularly harrowing, Zadra has shot Kula and descends into the sewer, pausing to have one last look at ruined Warsaw, he turns his head around from left to right, at one point looking straight at the camera, then going back down into the dark sewer to rescue “his boys”.
Kanal uses mise-en-scéne and the opening voiceover to create claustrophobia and a sense of looming danger throughout the film. The use of documentary footage at the start embeds the narrative in a real setting, making the character’s experiences, fears and deaths seem real as well as blurring the lines between fiction and reality to engross the viewer in the events on screen.
References
1. Coates, (2005), p.32
2. Coates , (2005), p120
3. Bren, (1990), p.35)
4. Coates, (2004), p.119
Bibliography
Bren, F (1990) World Cinema One: Poland; Wiltshire, Flicks Books
Coates, P (2005) The Red and the White; The Cinema Of People’s Poland; London, Wallflower Press
Orr J and Ostrowska E (eds) (2003) The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda; The Art of Irony and Defiance, London; Wallflower Press
