I keep thinking that I have seen many more movies from director Pawel Pawlikowski, but I haven't. Before finally seeing Cold War I had only seen two other movies from him, the strangely enjoyable (despite itself) The Woman In The Fifth and the excellent Ida. Many people have been urging me to get Cold War watched for some time and now here we are.
A love story that moves between Poland and France, and covers a time period from the 1940s to the 1960s, Cold War gives us two central characters who don't initially seem to be very interesting, except to one another. Joanna Kulig is a singer, Zula, who catches the eye/ear of a music director named Wiktor (Tomasz Kot). Their potentially idyllic life is kept out of reach by the political turmoil around them, including a decision made to have the musical troupe they are involved with perform some pieces of propaganda in favour of Communism that will allow them to tour the Eastern Bloc, and fate conspires to then separate the two, and to keep them separated, by both their own decisions and the events unfolding around them.
Presented in gorgeous black and white throughout, Cold War is a romantic and sensual film that explores both the highs and lows of intense love between two people. Some may view it very differently, but the backdrop here felt as if it could have been changed to a number of other situations providing the same obstacles, although Pawlikowski has a very personal reason for making his tale the way it is, and the main characters are shaped, at least partially, by their time period and geography.
Kulig and Kot are both excellent in their lead roles, often exemplifying the notion of “you always hurt the ones you love” as they feel pained both together and apart, for different reasons. There are a number of good supporting turns, but the film belongs to the two leads, people we get to see as shaded characters, neither wholly good or bad, especially when you consider what each one is projecting on to the other.
The script, written by Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki, and Piotr Borkowski, is precise and delicate, often hinting at worse things happening offscreen (to the main characters and in the wider world around them), and there’s a perfect balance maintained between what is said aloud and what goes unsaid. Sometimes those unsaid words are kept at bay due to bad timing and emotional turbulence, sometimes they are unsaid for personal safety. The flawless direction makes everything clear, whether it is spoken or silent, and Pawlikowski remains a huge talent that I look forward to spending more time with.
As you may have gathered, this is simply great cinema from start to finish. Layered, mesmerising, visually lush, and exploring the nature of intense love, something so powerful that it can render the external world redundant and/or cause grievous self-harm, this is easily recommended to anyone who hasn’t yet seen it. Although I sometimes feel as if I am the last person to get to some of these acclaimed films, and therefore the last person who should be telling others to clear a space in their viewing schedules.
9/10
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