A magnificent film of extremes: Wajda's Danton is a lusty, Breughelian emblem cut exactly to the cloth of Gérard Depardieu; his Robespierre, a frightening, agonized figure icily portrayed by the great Polish actor Wojciech Pszoniak. Both are doomed by Robespierre's own Reign of Terror but first, Wajda allows their last attempt to reach an understanding, and the open war that resulted from their failure, a lengthy and colorful airing. Critics and especially historians have been split on the film's accuracy, although Wajda's polarized vision may itself be the best argument against a realistic interpretation of the film. Its faithfulness to the play on which it was based, The Danton Affair, written in the 1920s by an ardent young Communist named Stanislawa Przybyszewska, has also been challenged. She wrote, “Thanks to Robespierre, I discovered morality and the highest spiritual conception of man”; but it is Wajda's passionately human Danton who is virtually canonized in his attack on the Terror and his defense of a free press. All of which leaves open the most celebrated interpretation of the film as an allegory of contemporary Poland. It is a decision that Wajda, the artist, leaves up to his audience to make.