Kanal (1957)

The second film of Andrzej Wajda's celebrated World War II trilogy focuses on three groups of Polish soldiers and freedom fighters trying to escape the Nazis through the labyrinthine sewer system of Warsaw during that city's 1944 uprising. The first group, commanded by the risk-taking Madry (Emil Karewicz), includes a despondent courier, Halinka (Teresa Berezowska), and a mad composer (Vladek Sheybal). The second group is a pair of lovers, Daisy Stokrotka (Teresa Izewska) and Corporal Korab (Tadeusz Janczar). As they wade through sewage, the weakened Korab, who is kept alive by his partner, begins having hallucinations of idyllic surroundings. The third group is led by Lieutenant Zadra (Wienczyslaw Glinski), who openly questions the methods of the Resistance--"Attacking tanks and planes with pistols and grenades? Will we never learn?"--while trying to ferret out a traitor in the ranks before it's too late. Wajda's unrelentingly intense, claustrophobic portrait of courage in adversity offers a harrowing window on war that (along with its hellish, subterranean setting) earned the film favorable comparisons to Dante's INFERNO.