During the celebrated four-minute long shot that introduces us to the beleaguered underground of fighters in Warsaw resisting the Nazi occupation in 1944, the narrator tells us, “These are the heroes of the tragedy. Watch them closely for these are the last hours of our lives.” The centerpiece of Wajda’s “War Trilogy,” and the first Polish film to depict the Warsaw Uprising, Kanał follows the fighters through a hopeless but heroic journey that will take them into the city’s sewer system, the only place they can survive. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes (along with Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL) and became the first of Wajda’s films to open in the U.S. when it premiered at Dan Talbot’s New Yorker Theater in 1961.