This film, pulsating with the agony of parting gestures, is also pulsating with life. The fates of Wajda's heroes have always been tied to a more general fate of the nation, the community, the group, and determined by that general fate, usually ensuing in tragedy. And the comforts of beauty and joy brought on by the stream of life make these laws all the easier to accept. The sole weapon to fight the terror of death is love. And the only way to escape oblivion is by intensifying the instinctive search for sensual pleasure.
Sensuality rekindles the flame of life.
Thus, in Freudian terms, we witness the struggle of Eros and Thanatos. The way Bertolucci presented the same duel in The Last Tango in Paris provoked scandal. Wajda has depicted the conflict with great visual clarity, showing idyllic nature, resounding with birds, and the shady nooks and crannies of a decomposing, degenerate world.