The first film in Andrzej Wajda’s war film trilogy, A Generation is a coming of age film set in Poland during German occupation. Stach (Tadeusz Lomnicki), an apprentice at a carpentry shop, joins the Youth Underground more because the lovely Dorota (Urszula Modrzynska) catches his eye than because of the programs Marxist ideology. And in this small microcosm, the film explores several ideas.
First, the Marxist lens is essential. Within the framework of the film, the Poles are all working-class citizens, the proletariat. Stach works as a carpenter where he makes bunks for German soldiers. These Poles are simply struggling to get by. Stach tries to get one of his friends into the Youth Underground, but the boy worries that if something happens to him, no one will be able to provide for his mother.
The Germans in the film all represent the bourgeoisie, those who are above the working class and actually end up oppressing them. Sure, a Pole may own the carpentry shop, but it’s the Germans who are controlling the supply and demand of the shop, inspecting wood as it comes in and the final product. Germans are seen carousing, drinking, and feeling up the local women. They are the exploiters.
In A Generation, the act of rebellion and war is a Marxist narrative, one where the oppressed will inevitably revolt and a new order of youth will attempt to arise with power, imposing their new set of values about how the world will work. As Stach says, a true Marxist fights. At first, he fights with a youthful cavalier, perhaps more for a sense of patriotic duty and a sense of heroism.
The film introduces Stach as he and two friends leap onto a German supply train. The three friends dump coal off the train as an act of rebellion. However, their contribution is small, perhaps not even impactful on a grand scale. Stach’s narration during this scene insinuates that this act was motivated out of a false sense of contribution of a larger conflict they mostly neglected. It’s only when Stach’s friend dies in one of these attempts that he decides to become an apprentice, which opens him up to the wider conflict.
And while this begins his journey into becoming an adult, he continues to retain a sense of playfulness. The focus on adolescence in the film adds a thematic layer to the film: a hopeful outlook. The times are hard, Stach lives in a neighborhood made up of small shacks, but it is ideas of what might be that sparks the drive of youthful vigor and calls young women and men to action. At times, their morally complicated acts feel more like games, but there’s still enough gravitas and intent behind them to show us that the youth understand the responsibilities and the risks, sometimes even more than the adults.
As Stach and Dorota grow to love one another, they begin to think about the prospects of a life together. They wonder if it is worth living in the world that surrounds them, a world that appears to place them in abject poverty, oppressed by a superpower, squeezed dry by a larger war. What kind of place is this to love in? What kind of place is this to live in?
Ultimately, they conclude that life is worth living in this place because they have love, they have hope and they have the courage to face what lies ahead. They can act childish and naïve, but this is their strength, it is what gives them drive and purpose, they have something to preserve and pass on to others. As the film progresses they become adults; realizing that there is a time to be silly and a time to be serious.
Yet the power of youth alone is not enough to prevail. The tragedy of every war, every resistance, every battle is that some youth are taken ahead of their time, crushed and downtrodden. Some of Stach’s friends die; the group begins to fall apart and soon, few who started the crusade are left. But while Stach’s generation of freedom fighters may not see the fruits of their labors, their work makes way for a new generation.
