Mubi Monday: Cold War (2018)

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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Mubi Monday: Elles (2011)

Juliette Binoche stars here as Anne, a journalist writing for Elle magazine. Her latest assignment is all about university students who earn themselves extra money by working as prostitutes. As she has more conversations with Charlotte (Anaís Demoustier) and Alicja (Joanna Kulig), she starts to find herself more and more preoccupied with thoughts of sex, and how it impacts the lives of these young women, for better or for worse.

Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska, who also co-wrote the script with Tine Byrckel, Elles has been lazily described as a modern riff on Belle de Jour. While there are certainly similarities here, especially with the way that the main character starts to slip further into moments of fantasy during her day to day life, this is a film framed to feel much more relevant today than the Bunuel classic (and Belle de Jour IS a classic). There's ambiguity, there is a good and bad side shown to being so open to differing dynamics in sexual situations, but the undercurrent feels more positive, a reminder to women that wanting sex, using it for your own gain, isn't anything to be ashamed of, no matter what hypocrites have to say about it.

Szumowska is someone I have not encountered before, yet a very brief look over her filmography shows a selection of titles and synopses that mark her out as someone creating consistently smart and interesting fare. I doubt this will be the last time I review one of her films, especially as I now intend to seek out her other works ASAP (ASAP for me, however, always means . . . at some point within the next decade).

Binoche does good work in the main role, portraying a character who could easily have remained less interesting than the others she becomes fascinated by. The fact that she becomes more fleshed out and interesting as she examines herself in the reflection of her interview subjects is thanks to both the script and the performance from Binoche. The same can be said of her family members (mainly her husband, played by Louis-do de Lencquesaing, and elder son, played by François Civil), with those characters moved to the foreground as Demoustier and Kulig, a couple of key scenes aside, are gradually moved back. The focus of the film slowly, but surely, turns to show what Binoche does with her new insights, and how she starts to consider living her life by a new set of standards.

Elles doesn't do anything new, it won't change the way you view things, but it's a well-made reminder of the minefields we all navigate in our own minds when it comes to something that should always be pleasurable and a lot less complicated: sex.

7/10

You can pick up the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.