Ashes and Diamonds (film)

Ashes and Diamonds Polish Popi i diament is a 1958 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the 1948 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It completed Wajdas war films trilogy, following A Generation 1954 and Kanal 1956. The title comes from a 19thcentury poem by Cyprian Norwid and references the manner in which diamonds are formed from heat and pressure acting upon coal.

In an unnamed small Polish town on May 8, 1945, the day Germany officially surrendered, Maciek Zbigniew Cybulski and Andrzej Adam Pawlikowski are former Home Army soldiers, now cursed soldiers who have been assigned to assassinate the communist Commissar Szczuka Wacaw Zastrzeyski, but fail in their first attempt to ambush him, killing two civilian cement plant workers instead. They are given a second chance in the towns leading hotel and banquet hall, Monopol.Meanwhile, a grand fte is being organized at the hall for a newly appointed minor minister and current town mayor by his assistant, Drewnowski Bogumi Kobiela. Drewnowski is in fact a double agent, present at the first attempt to kill Szczuka. Maciek manages to sweet talk himself into a room with the desk clerk, who is also a fellow Warsaw native. They sadly reminisce about such things as the older section of town and the chestnut trees which were lost when the Germans destroyed most of the city in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising. While Maciek and Andrzej bide their time to strike Szczuka, Maciek becomes infatuated with the hotels barmaid, Krystyna Ewa Krzyewska. ........

Source: Wikipedia