Only a Pole could make a movie like Kanał (Canal, 1956). Such resigned nihilism can only arise from a country that has literally both ceased to exist (the Partitions) and been razed completely (Poland 1939-1940).

The second in Andzrej Wajda’s trilogy about World War II, Kanał tells the story soldiers in the Polish Home Army who were encircled by Germans during the last days of the Warsaw Uprising. Ordered to retreat, the 44 soldiers try to escape via the sewer system. Most of the film takes place in that most unimaginably horrid location: encircled by the enemy above, surrounded literally by s— below.

While at first glance Kanał seems to be a film about Poles resisting the Nazis, it’s equally — if not more — a critique of the lack of Soviet intervention during the Warsaw Uprising. The common Polish view is that the Soviet army camped out on the eastern bank of the Vistula and did little if anything to help the Polish soldiers. Some historians, it seems, dispute that account, but having lived in Poland and married a Pole, I am partial to the Polish view (and, generally speaking, the majority view, I believe). In that sense, it’s a minor miracle that the film made it past the censors, as it not only lacks a show of communist brotherhood but even hints at the opposite.

Certainly not a movie for simply “kicking back,” but well worth viewing.