Jerzy Andrzejewski was the author of ' Ashes and Diamonds ' arguably Wajda's best film, adapted from the novel. The novel is justly considered a Polish masterpiece and the film is good, but this film, known as ' Gates to Paradise ' a novel written by Andrzejewski was too complex to bring to the screen, especially as Wajda himself considered the film a failure. The fact that the film deals with homosexuality was probably too distasteful for him to handle was probably the cause of it being a total failure. He must have known that Andrzejewski was a great writer and that in the book the subject matter was written experimentally in one long sentence, followed by a short sentence afterwards, and needed an equal experimental approach, and that the homosexuality was treated with a great deal of beauty. Instead of approaching it with understanding he made a clumsily flat film, without empathy or passion and cast it with actors that looked and acted very badly, due no doubt to his ham fisted direction. In colour and crudely dubbed it is a disaster that betrayed the author's intentions entirely. Polish film has no great record on portraying homosexuality and Wajda, knowing he was incapable of doing the book justice should have left it alone. As for the cast Ferdy Mayne was miscast as the so-called ' predator ' and he was out of his depth, missing out on the romantic aspects of the relationship with the youth he has had a relationship with. It should be re-filmed by a braver director and it would be an achievement for a Polish director to film it in Polish with Polish actors who thankfully understand their roles instead of making them one-dimensional puppets. It deserves its cinematic oblivion.
Review of Gates to Paradise
