Cold War

From the Academy Award-winning director of Ida comes another cold, stark & emotionally distant feature, this time centred around a couple that can neither stay together nor live apart. Taking inspiration from his own parents' turbulent history, Pawel Pawlikowski's latest is a tale of cursed love in cursed times. Set in the ruins of post-war Europe, the story concerns a musical director who discovers a young singer and helps her refine her talent. The plot follows their romance over the years as their different backgrounds, varying temperaments & politics of the era keep separating them apart & bringing them back together. Co-written & directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, the film definitely benefits from its splendid camerawork & wonderful music but the romance aspect is both stale & soulless. Watching the same episode repeated time n again in different places & years gets old & boring real soon, plus we never even grow to care about them. The two lovebirds have no individual lives of their own. The story never digs into that aspect, for it only shows us the segments that brings them together before driving them apart again. And the repetitive nature of it makes sure that we are never invested in them or their relationship or the troubles they find themselves in over the years. Difficulties of living in exile or under totalitarian regime are only glimpsed at but never explored. Joanna Kulig & Tomasz Kot do well with what they are given and while their work looks impressive, it doesn't truly resonate on an emotional level. It's a good thing that the film is only 85 minutes long and ends before it becomes an ordeal to sit through. On an overall scale, Cold War is beautiful to look at but its story doesn't stimulate the senses the way its arresting imagery does. The frame composition, greyscale photography, crisp camerawork and excellent musical choices actually turned out to be its saving grace, for without them, this Polish drama would be no less than an absolute chore. In a word, underwhelming.

I watched "Ida". I've just watched this. I wonder if I'm missing something since each time I've come out from a Pawel Pawlikowski film wondering what the big deal is. The cinematography is pretty and the context, worthy. But that is it. I learned nothing, felt nothing for the characters and wasn't taken anywhere by this film. It's a case of the wrapping paper being better than the present. I don't want to be mean about the filmmaker or wickedly speculate on the reasons this film has gained critical acclaim. What I can say is the mark of a good film, at least for me, is that you can and feel you must see it again as there is a recognition that there are so many things to appreciate that a single viewing cannot satisfy. These are two films that neither I nor many of the other people who watch it will ever see again--out of deliberate choice. That is all there is to say.

The first time I saw Cold War, I fell asleep halfway through it at AFI Fest 2018. That was my fourth film of the day, and I was extremely tired. I felt very bad, so I was very eager for when the film would be released to the public so that I could give it another try. Today is that day. Well, after seeing it for a second time (and unfortunately being two to three minutes late), I actually think there was more than tiredness that caused me to fall asleep in the first screening. I truly think that Cold War is the epitome of what style over substance is. This film has such a bad plot, uninteresting characters, and a story that flashed through more than a decade in eighty-five minutes. Cold War tries to disguise its faults with spectacular black and white cinematography, a stunning vocal score, and a pretentious choice of a historical time period, but I was not fooled for one bit. The plot was so thin that I could not even begin to describe how ridiculously simple, yet annoying it was: "Man who is a musical director finds a female singer with incredible talent. He leads her to fame. One day they eye-flirt at a party. They bang pretty intensely. Then, one year goes by without talking to each other. They meet one day on the sidewalk. They both declare they have significant others. But, because of their erratic attraction for each other, they have intercourse again. And then they bang again and again. Then they go on tour. She gets more famous. Then, five years go by. After not speaking to each other, they meet each other yet again. They both declare they are married to other people. But because of their lustful nature, they BANG yet again. And again. Then they decide to drop their husband/wife and become a couple. They start to fight. Then they bang to make up. Then she gets mad at him. Then she slaps him. Then seven years go by. They bang. Then, they get married. The end." In other words, the plot of this film revolves around two people whose love affair can be simplified as "hey baby, let's get it on." There is hardly any dialogue between them that is romantically sincere. It is all just sexual or boring exposition. I felt nothing for these two people. And I really didn't care. For all you love it to death, good for you. But I prefer films with better developed characters at the expense of extremely pretentious cinematography. How about the Before Trilogy that isn't beautifully shot by any means, but the characters are excellently portrayed. All in all, I wish this film was better than the camera thinks it is.

Reading a bit of the blurb surrounding Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, it would seem that this is a film based loosely not on his own experiences, but on those of his mother and father. Not only were they hopelessly in love, but they were, to all intents and purposes, a bit rubbish at it. Pawlikowski refers to the fact that they seemed all too able to create chaos out of order by way of their poor decision making and general impetuosity; thereby frequently courting romantic disaster. Set to the backdrop of post-war Poland, Pawlikowski's film traces the ups and downs of a highly passionate and volatile relationship between two somewhat mismatched lovers: musical impresario, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), and the singer / dancer and all-round apple of his eye, Zula (Joanna Kulig). Zula is one of the star turns of the Mazurek Ensemble, a musical collective created by Wiktor and his musical business partner, Irena (Agata Kulesza), which seeks, above everything, to preserve the purity of the traditional music of Poland. This purity is however soon to be compromised by political forces and it's not long before the ensemble is obliged to espouse all manner of Stalin-esque Soviet propaganda to the wider world, much to the chagrin of Wiktor whose own personal Western ideals and values are in direct opposition to this. While on tour in East Germany, Wiktor sees an opportunity to escape this autocratic nightmare and conjures up a plan for he and Zula to flee across the border from East to West Berlin. This he believes will allow the couple the best possible opportunity to live a creative life free from the shackles of repressive Communism. But while Zula is apparently receptive to Wiktor's idea, to what extent exactly? And what place and role - she secretly ponders - could a young Polish country girl possibly have in such a brave new world? Pawel Pawlikowski effortlessly combines elements of romance, politics and art here to form an absolutely mesmerising piece, helped in no small way by two wonderful lead performances of quite some stature from Kot and Kulig. Artistically creative and texturally sumptuous, Lukasz Zal's cinematography is quite simply breathtaking, and enhanced no end by the decision to shoot in monochrome. This is a choice which accentuates not only the dank unrelenting greyness of a Communist-era Poland, but the brooding smokey cool of the hip 1950's Parisian jazz scene which Wiktor embraces following his ultimately lone defection from East to West. Perhaps most impressive of all though is the film's exquisite soundtrack. From a selection of luscious traditional and jazz arrangements of Polish folk tunes, to an expertly curated selection of classical pieces and rock and roll hits of the time, this is as overwhelming a cinematic sonic experience as I have had in many a year. Pawlikowski's film somehow creates the feel of a sprawling three hour epic yet at just 88 minutes in length, this is a lesson to all film makers in achieving maximum impact from what is almost bordering on short-form film making - in the context of Oscar-nominated major motion pictures, that is. Above all, Cold War is a wonderfully memorable and immersive tale of promised yet untenable, ill-fated love in unforgiving times, and undoubtedly an award-winner in the making. This and hundreds of other reviews are available on my WaywardWolfBlog

After watching the film 'Ida', the impression produced by this second film known outside Poland by Pawel Pawlikowski is that it is a commission in the shadow of his success and not a quiet and meditated work of which the author can feel proud father. Probably in Ida's creation the author easily spent five years of his life, in this one it is obvious that the script are some brushstrokes sketched on the basis of fused in black and label of 'A few years later' that slow down the rhythm and burden a story that in this case is conventional in itself but typical and not very credible. The first twenty minutes it seems that he was going to be satisfied with making a Carlos Saura type film about Flamenco, only that applied to Polish folklore, and to the specific time in which they were under the yoke of the Warsaw Pact, it would have been a worthy effort because both the music and the interpretations in that first part are really outstanding, but the melodrama enters the scene and spoils everything. A lost opportunity and a downturn in the trajectory of this author that we hope will give us much more 'Idas' than 'Cold Wars' in the future.

This movie is great. It shows story of ordinary people in difficult times. It helps You imagine what were people going through in eastern Europe not more than 70 years ago. There was no one shot of violence, yet at the end You should grieve. The movie is fullfiled with beautiful music from past times. Actors performance is very memorable. Great movie!

Visually, this film is stunning and beautiful example of film noir. The narrative leaves a lot to be desired. This film is portrayed as a love story, star crossed lovers in post way Poland. However in my humble opinion I wasn't convinced that they were in love, not convinced that there was romance. To be honest it came across as self indulgent tripe. From Zula not showing up to their destined meeting in Berlin to escape to the west, to Zula leaving Wiktor in Paris while she returned to Poland. I want you, but I don't. And now I do again. Wiktor in his soppy "I will follow her no matter where" does just that and despite very high risk of incarceration, goes to find her and does find himself in jail. Thats paraphrasing much of the story but it is less painful than actually watching it. Zula comes to the rescue when she claims she will get Wiktor out. Fast forward and there is an implication that she got together with Kaczmarek and had a child. When Wiktor is freed he goes to the show and sees them all. Zula gets off stage, walks straight past her child without a glance to greet Wiktor. WHY????????? Why even bring a child into the narrative? It did absolutely nothing to improve this story and just made the ending even more unpalatable. The ending.... well Wiktor and Zula symbolically marry in a ruined church. Once their vows are made, they swallow a whole bunch of pills. While not specifically shown you can guess that suicide is the end. I wanted to like this. I really did. Unfortunately I found myself wondering if I had watched a different edit to the critics because I found it to be utterly forgettable, selfish and self indulgent. The cinematography was not enough to save it for me.

Pawel Pawlikowski was so flimsy and uncertain during the making of his "The Woman in the Fifth" (Ethan Hawke, 5.4 on IMDB) that the film ended up a huge commercial fail. It seems he's then continued his run of 85ish minute films by sticking to very simple stories told in frosty black and white and the 4:3 ratio. Why, they must be incredible arthouse films! Well, no. This is not Kieslowski or Tarkovsky. There is no greater meaning or depth to be unpicked from a frame. The more you look, the more annoyingly shallow and superficial the film feels, like its been carefully constructed to hit enough notes to look like a worthy film. You can almost feel the director thinking "how can I shoehorn in a smoky jazz scene?" then "how can I shoehorn in some rock'n'roll dancing?" but there's precious little relevance to such scenes. Its not a bad film. Its often nice to look at, and its fairly engaging (although it abruptly throws you out of a scene with the episodic 'jump ahead a few years' structure, when you don't feel like the scene you just saw was particularly relevant or substantial). But what's the point? Love can't be stopped? Obsession transcends time and circumstance? Please. It gets to a point where it stops being relatable and never approaches the level of emotional maturity or intelligence that it pretends. I just don't trust or think that the director really has a clue what he's doing, and is simply throwing a lot of stuff at the wall in the hope that it 'looks' like a film. But its not more than the sum of its parts - the closer you look, the emptier it becomes.

I must admit that the movie is not bad. The black and white color style creates a romantic and nostalgic atmoshere, during the era of the beginning of the cold war. There are some impressive and well-played scenes (and that is something the director must be praised for, his visual aesthetic), especially in the beginning of the movie, showing the life in Poland after the war and the folkore culture. The perfume and sense of old times and the illustration of another era are so clear. This is the good side of the movie, that reminds us something of the old romantic movies. On the other hand, a movie that could simply be a masterpiece, it just ends to be "nothing special". The main reason is that, although it considers to be a love-film, love is not clearly illustrated. The spectator cannot really understand why their love is so strong, why these people are so stuck to its other. They continue to move all the time and make love and argue, while there is not enough "heaviness" to their relationship. It becomes boring at some point, just to watch people go around and argue and love each other without a reason. In cocnlusion, while I liked the way that the director presents the capitalist world, giving emphasis to the differences between the east and the west ethics and culture, I didn't like the way of presentation of the communist side, because he concentrates only to authority, power, jails and no freedom at all. The movie just left me with a sense, that I was expecting something more.

Great movie, very efficient in delivering the most content with minimalist means. Everything is perfect: top acting, top direcing, fabulous photography, incredible music and the writing... The writing is the best. The writing provides the essence of what Cold War was about historically. You needed to read between the lines all the time, nothing was given to you straight.