For anyone who retains warm memories of the early, baroque efforts of Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda -- Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds, in particular -- and has had no access to any since, the dishevelled look of Man of Iron is apt to be a bit of a jolt. A roving, groping, fumbling camera has replaced the confident one of yesteryear, and the shuffling-in of flashbacks and documentary footage does nothing to smooth out the visual texture. A witness to its times and its milieu, to the current climate of strikes and suppression, the movie is relentlessly intelligent, ironic, engagé -- all that and more. What it is not, cruel to say, is cinematically seaworthy -- assembled, that is, with proper regard for image, movement, total shape, all the things that keep the eye fixed to the screen instead of diverted to the wristwatch. (1981) — Duncan Shepherd
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