The Last Witness

Being an Englishman who has been living in Poland for the last 16 years I was interested to see this joint Polish-Anglo production and it is definitely worth it for those viewers who are interested in this period of history just after the end of World War II.

The film, based on a true story, covers the British and American cover up of the Katyn massacre in 1940 by the Russian NKVD of around 22,000 Poles from the intelligentsia, military, church i.e. the country's elite. The victims were shot in the back of the head and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest, to be discovered a year later by German forces who were building a road thru the forest. In efforts to maintain the Russian commitment to defeating the Nazis, the massacre was blamed on the Germans.

Alex Pettyfer is very convincing in the role of Stephen Underwood, the young journalist who sets out to discover the mystery of why so many Polish soldiers are committing suicide in his area of Bristol. This is a mission that is of no interest to his editor (Michael Gambon) and he meets several obstacles along the way in his quest to find out the truth.

He is assisted in his quest by his lover, Jeanette Mitchell (Talulah Riley) who gives a good (but a times a little stilted ) performance and his efforts are being monitored by the British, headed by Mason Mitchell (Jeanette's homosexual husband played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes, who also puts in a convincing performance). The witness is played by the well-known actor, Robert Wieckiewicz, and his role is at the crux of the film's plot.

So, all in all a definite recommendation to see this film. Piotr Szkopiak (born to Polish parents in London - they were deported from Poland in 1939), who is both the film's director and co-writer, looks like a promising young director to watch out for.

Throughout the Cold War, one of the great untold truths of World War II was Russian responsibility for the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other "prisoners of war" in the Katyn forest. If Britain and the United States had tried to bring the Russians to justice, they believed it would have jeopardized the peace and revealed the real nature of Stalin's regime. Instead, both countries did their best to suppress the truth, even to the extent of espionage that included murder. Although this is a fictionalized version of these events, "The Last Witness" is also a realistic view of what journalists can and have done to bring the truth to light. This is a beautifully produced film, and it is difficult to understand what motivates some IMDB reviewers to dismiss it as "sucha a bad film." It is a wonderful and welcome film that follows half a century during which such a film could not have been made. It is also incentive to watch an arguably better film released in 2007 called "Katyn" and directed by Anrzej Wajda.

This is a nicely directed, historically accurate movie. The cast is overall very good, especially Robert Wieckiewicz.

The Last Witness will be appreciated by the more intelligent, thoughtful movie watchers, but probably not by those who look for excessive violence and explicit sexual scenes.

By times The Last Witness reminded me of some of Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful films. But I was more deeply moved by this one than any of Hitchcock's fictional movies, because I knew these events really happened.

The movie, though premised on the WW II backdrop, isn't a war movie. It's a movie that chronicles how arduously a journalist pursues the mysterious surfeit of suicides of ex-Polish corps. He tries to scrounge for a story, defying odds, from clandestinely poised observers to potentially malevolent institutional resistance.

The cinematography of the movie is very accurate in it's treatment of a sensitive subject, with the background score augmenting the pace of the movie, though it might raise the spectre of being a languidly paced movie, only to accentuate the realism that investigative journalism doesn't fructify as is portrayed in the stereotypical Hollywood movies. The movie is quite authentic in portrayal of the post war eras, with it's settings.

It is a poignant movie, and though movies are meant to be enjoyed, it leaves you retrospective, pondering how farcical history can be and how it is usually forged by the victors of a war, often under the garb of sustaining the feeble political entente.

Breathtaking film based on facts that are well played by a nice plethora of Brit actors . An ambitious young journalist -Alex Pettyfer who produces as well- uncovers the horrific slaughter of twenty-two thousand Polish officers during World War II . He meets a Polish soldier who has survived and whose companions were killed at Katyn , but he keeps silence , being chased by military spies . The journalist lives in hopes the polish man tells the actual events , but he's obligated to accuse the Nazis of the horrible deaths . The final credits states : "In 1990, Soviet President Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union was responsible for the murders of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn in 1940. No one was ever prosecuted. In 2012, declassified documents proved that the U. S. government suppressed information that attested to Soviet guilt. No British government has ever publicly charged the Soviet Union with responsibility for the Katyn Massacre. This film is dedicated to the 22,000 Polish prisoners of war murdered in the Katyn Massacre and to those murdered in the years that followed so that the truth would remain buried forever."

This notable movie is a vivid portrayal about war and post-war along with a criminal intrigue in which an obstinate journalist attempts to find out real identity of an Eastern European refugee resulting in unexpected consequences . War has rarely been rendered in such an horrid, utterly grim manner, especially in its final part . Harrowing, unnerving drama which depicts the horror of war with a terrible massacre , a secret that has been kept hidden for far too many years and maintaining his possible connection to the British government's collusion in the cover up of one of Joseph Stalin's most notorious crimes. The story contains some overwhelming sequences as the massacre across the Katyn wood and including some actual documentary. Stars Alex Pettyfer who gives an acceptable acting as a young, ambitious journalist who risks love, career, and ultimately his life to uncover the surprising true by taking a notebook . He's well accompanied by a good cast , such as : Robert Wieckiewicz , Talulah Riley and special mention for the veteran Michael Gambon as a chief editor . The motion picture was professionally directed by Piotr Szkopiak, an ordinary TV director.

The historic events in which this movie are based result to be the following ones : Hitler wanted to avoid facing a possible alliance of the Soviet Union , Britain and France. The Western democracies were equally aware of the Soviets' potential to deter German expansion but their negotiations with Stalin did not lead to any agreement. At the same time, however, Hitler had set aside his ideological differences with Stalin in the hopes of making an alliance. In August 1939 he offered Stalin a deal : If the Soviets allowed Germany to attack Western Poland , they would receive eastern Poland and Baltic states. The Munich capitulation of France and Britain to Hitler's demands convinced that they would be unreliable allies . He decided that he had to cope with German expansion eastward on his own, without their help. In late August 1939, German foreign Secretary Joachin Von Ribentropp visited Moscow to sign with Molotov a German-Soviet Nonagression Pact , which included the deal over territory. The agreement between two nations at opposite political extremes, fascism on one side , communism on the other, shocked the world. It also left Hitler with a free hand in Poland. Hitler used an apparent Polish raid on a Radio Station in the German border town of Gleiwitz as an excuse to invade Poland the following day , September 1, 1939. Two days later, on September 3, France and Britain declared war on Germany, WWII had begun. Beaten back by the Germans, Polish forces were now attacked from the east. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered his Red Army to cross into eastern Poland. He claimed that he wanted to prevent anarchy caused by the collapse of Polish government. Thousands of Soviet troops poured across the border and raced west to link up with German troops. Organized Polish resistance to the invaders collapsed. In the last week of September Polish troops in Modlin and Warsaw surrounded to the Germans, A small garrison of 4.500 men held out on the Hel Peninsula near Danzing until October 2. Some 694.000 Polish were seized by the victorious Germans and more than 217.000 Poles were rounded up by the Red Army. Both the Germans and Soviets treated the Poles with great brutality. Stalin ordered most of his prisoners deported to the Gulag (a system brutal labor camps) and later taking more than 20.000 officer prisoners were executed in secret.