Warsaw Uprising

A documentary about Warsaw in 1944. The whole production is made of footage from the period. During the uprising cameramen attached to the resistance filmed in the streets; the material was shot for newsreels and most of it was never used. The film gathers it together. The images were coloured and given sound. The sound is a separate piece of work. The lip movements of the people speaking on camera were studied by lip readers; what they said was written down and voiced again by actors. Street noise, gunfire and the sound of the city were added afterwards. The narrative is built through two young cameramen. The brothers film and talk to each other; that frame is invented, but all the footage is real. The film follows sixty-three days: barricades, movement through the sewers, buildings coming down, funerals and the surrender. Who is where in the footage is often unknown, and the film does not hide it. It was prepared by a museum in Warsaw and the restoration of the archive took years. Jan Komasa directed. A direct source for anyone interested in documentaries of recent history and archive work. Before you watch, know this: the film contains real footage of death and its register is suffocating. Who it is for: anyone who wants to see the history of the war at first hand. Who it is not for: anyone who objects to colourisation and added sound; those choices are open to argument.