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Katyn

Universal acclaim
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | War
Written by:
Andrzej Mularczyk (story)
Przemyslaw Nowakowski
Wladyslaw Pasikowski
Andrzej Wajda
Directed by: Andrzej Wajda
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 18, 2009
DVD: August 11, 2009
Running Time: 118 minutes, Color
Origin: Poland
Language(s): Polish | Russian | German
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski, Andrzej Chyra, and Jan Englert
In 1941, during their march on Moscow, the Nazis discovered the mass graves of 22,00 Polish intellectuals, clergy and officers. Katyn is the story of Joseph Stalin's order to execute these people.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) James Adams
There's no redemption here. Indeed, if anything is redemptive about Katyn , it's the fact of the film itself.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The great Polish director Andrzej Wajda musters the power of classical filmmaking and personal emotional investment to dramatize a stunning atrocity long covered up.
Read Full Review >Variety Leslie Felperin
This plays almost like an academic master class, meticulously exploring the event's ramifications but only catching full fire at the end.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
This tenacious artist has now given his father a proper memorial and has reasserted, with power and grace, the history and identity of his nearly effaced country.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A history lesson for a country and a people forced to forget at gunpoint.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Bruce Eder
An unrelentingly powerful and seamless indictment of two brutal political systems.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Now Wajda has brought some small measure of rest to their names, to Poland, and to history.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Wajda makes the murders look horrific and jangled, like something out of "Hostel," then ends Katyn with extended darkness and silence, allowing the audience to mourn for the death of a nation.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The period sets, costumes and cinematography all superbly recreate the brutal era, grand illusions and everyday suffering of the Poles under both the Nazis and the Soviets.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
It is filmed with simplicity, a purity of intent, and I wanted to watch the faces of these men in their last seconds of life--not for the sake of history, but because of Wajda's imperative to put his father's death onscreen. He needed to do this. And somehow, sanity is restored.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The result is a film with a stately, deliberate quality that insulates it against sentimentality and makes it all the more devastating.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Wajda, who lost his father in the purge, gives the film an awful silence and mystery at its core.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
While never less than fascinating, Katyn alternates between scenes of tremendous power and sequences most kindly described as dutiful. It's as if the artist is never certain whether he is making this movie for himself, his father, or the entire nation.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman
Andrzej Wajda has spent much of his long career dramatizing major events in Polish history, and this poignant feature depicts the circumstances surrounding the Soviet Union's massacre of thousands of Polish officers in the spring of 1940.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Katyn will not join Wajda's list of masterworks. In its final flashback, however, when we're taken back to the forest and the details of what really happened, we see what we must see, the clear-eyed way we should see it.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
A pensive and searching drama that explores how deep into the national psyche these murders in the Katyn forest went.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
J Q gave it a10:
The harrowing final scene of the film vividly depicts the pure evil that was Communism.
Paul M gave it a2:
An extremely disappointing film. The opening sequence indicated that I was in for a treat but within a few minutes I realised it was a bad film. Lack of continuity in story line, lacking in emotion, a very boring film. I've seen better treatment of this awful event on TV.
Domo R. gave it a10:
The story of a lie perpetuated by nations upon nations and more, a nation upon itself. Although the events happened 69 years ago, it is nonetheless a timely lesson for us now. Perhaps one day the US will have director like Wajda turn his fine eye to the lies we've told and are still telling to ourselves.
Jay H gave it an8:
Excellent story, exceptional cinematography and a keen eye for period detail make this a remarkable film.The story is very moving, disturbing as well. The cast is terrific and Andrzej Wajda's direction is superb. Fine art direction and costumes.
Frank G. gave it a10:
Fabulous movie. Stupendous. I wish it was shown in all schools. Children must learn about the crimes of communism.
Ann gave it a9:
This powerful movie tells the whole truth about what really happened to the Polish officers in the Katyn forest. The director, Andrzej Wajda, once again proves his unique directing skills and he makes this painful, edgy drama with a great sense of understanding. The violence in the movie is not exaggerated. However, the most moving thing about the film is its psychological aspect - the pain of officer's families, patiently and hopefully waiting for them to come back home.
