Katyn

I doubt that there will be a more gruelling, horrifying sequence in film this year (and that includes the likes of Saw and its torure porn ilk) than that which ends Katyn. In an interesting structural choice, Wajda ends the film with the massacre of Polish officers rather than include it in the logical, chronological place which would be halfway through. In fact, it's the only place for such a powerful sequence. Anywhere else and it would completely unbalance the film, whereas now the viewer leaves the cinema with one of the most traumatic events in Poland's unfortunate history seared into the brain.
The vivid ending is mirrored by an equally striking opening that perfectly encapsulates the tragedy of of Poland's situation in 1939. On a bridge, one group of refugees fleeing the Germans encounter another group fleeing in the opposite direction, from the advancing Russians. Which is the greater evil? As it turns out, either choice can lead to death and disaster. We get vignettes of life during both the occupation and the immediate post-war period (Wajda's dealt with both many times during his long career) but while the first half effectively cross-cuts between the captive officers and the families left behind, the second reverberates with the emotional toll of their deaths. On the negative side, there's occasionally some heavy-handed symbolism - in particular the reference to Antigone - and it becomes rather disjointed. However, it's the sort of film where one is prepared to overlook such lapses. What does work well in the second half is the Kafkaesque nature of Communist Poland, a place where everyone knows the truth about what happened but can never actually express that truth (dates of death can't be 1940 as that would mean the Russians were responsible) There is also effective use of German and Russian newsreel footage of the discovery of the mass graves. To our eyes, the images are genuinely shocking although each regime merely uses it as part of the propaganda war.
The knowledge of the fate of the officers hangs over all these scenes, in the first part providing a sense of foreboding and in the second an aching melancholy. Nothing though quite prepares the viewer for the dreadful final moments. Partly this is the emphasis on details (barbed wire to tie the hands, the efficient workflow required to shoot 21,000 men in the head, the impassive killers, the dawning realization of the doomed officers) and partly it's the clinical portrayal of the deaths. The repetition doesn't dull the shock but rather increases the horror. It's a suitably moving memorial to the dead, including the director's own father, and ensures that the coverup by the Russians that lasted for half a century is now rectified.