Andrzej Wajda – Landscape after a battle

Andrzej Wajda explores in Krajobraz po bitwie {Landscape after a battle} – 1970, how farce the transition is from under the rule of the Nazis to a transient rule of the Americans (in Germany) to the rule of the Communists in Poland after WWII. This work describes how man creates his own environment and how the human history is filled up with infinite series of grief, misery, exploitation and humiliation.

This becomes more relevant today when one understands that even after WWII – we have our freedom, but under surveillance.

Excerpts from the dialogue between Tadeusz played by Daniel Olbrychski and the American Officer tells the crux of the story :

America Officer : Do you speak English?

Tadeusz : Yes, I do.

America Officer : What's happened? Has anyone harmed them?

Tadeusz :Nothing is the matter...you've just shot a girl from the camp.

America Officer : Why? My God!

Tadeusz : Here in Europe, we are used to it. The Germans have been shooting us for six years. And now you. What's the difference?

Warning : If one is looking for a blissful finale – steer away from Andrzej Wajda.

Zorba The Greek

It was a sultry hot afternoon in June. I was sipping beer in some low down hotel in Jamshedpur sometime in the mid nineties watching television. Amitabh Bachchan was giving an interview. During the interview he commented that he would give anything worthwhile in his lifetime just to act with Anthony Quinn. I understood then what Anthony Quinn meant!

If one wants to watch Anthony Quinn at his best, I would suggest The Man From Del Rio {1956}, La Strada {1954} and The Guns of Navarone . After watching these and some of his other movies, specifically {Viva Zapata (1952), Ride, Vaquero! (1953), Attila (1954), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Marco The Magnificent (1965) and the Greek Tycoon (1978) – One MUST watch – Zorba The Greek (1964).

Once having viewed Zorba the Greek – and having read works of Aristotle, Russell, Plato, Schopenhauer, Chekov, Darwin, Dickens, Hume, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Shaw, Orwell, Flaubert, Maupassant, Kant, Rousseau, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Thomas Hardy, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Emile Zola, Beckett and having gone through the cycle of Nihilism, Depression and self proclaimed Intellectual – one has to read the book – Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis.