Andrzej Wajda's latest film, a French and Polish co-production, is based on a Polish play of the 1930s by Stanislawa Przybyszewska,' 'The Danton Affair'', which attempts to dramatise the emotional, intellectual and political differences between the two titans of the French Revolution, Georges Danton and Maximilian Robespierre. Wajda has already produced the play on the Polish stage three times and considers it the best drama ever written.

The play is largely a glorification of Robespierre, but the film tries to readjust the balance, and certainly Danton comes off as the more sympathetic character. Put into a wider context, Wajda has admitted that' 'the Western World is Danton's, and the East is Robespierre's. Robespierre's arguments are difficult to refute—even though Dan-ton's are perhaps closer to us."