Sat Dec 12 · 7:00pm
The Ashes (1965)
Andrzej Wajda's 1965 adaptation of Stefan Żeromski's two-volume novel follows Rafał Olbromski (Daniel Olbrychski), an impoverished nobleman caught among the shifting factions of the Napoleonic Wars. Shot in black-and-white CinemaScope by Jerzy Lipman, with battles staged with more than 1,500 extras, it angered Polish nationalists by showing Poles as “imperfect, manipulable and capable of violence.” A four-hour epic, in the HFA's Wajda centenary series.