Cold War
Film
Review by Kam Williams
Star-Crossed
Lovers Repeatedly Rendezvous in Polish Postwar Drama
Dateline:
Poland, 1949. The countryside is still devastated by the blight left
behind in the wake of the Second World War. It is amidst these ruins
that we find young Zula Lichon (Joanna
Kulig) auditioning for a spot in the national entertainment ensemble.
The
aspiring singer-dancer should be thankful for her good looks, since
she only survives the tryout because the repertory company's powerful
musical director, Wiktor Warski (Tomasz Kot), is quite taken by her
beauty. The pretty peasant girl, in turn, is quite flattered by the
attention being lavished on her by her handsome and
relatively-sophisticated advocate, even though he's old enough to be
her father.
Before
long, the two start sleeping together, indulging an animal magnetism
during stolen moments between their traveling troupe's performances
at various ports of call behind the Iron Curtain. Sadly, they are far
less passionate about their work than they are about each other.
That's
because the group finds itself pressured to stage productions that
are pure propaganda, given how Poland, as part of the Soviet bloc, is
under the thumb of Stalinist Russia. In fact, the political paranoia
of the era so deeply affects Zula, that she meets weekly with a
Communist Party boss (Lech Kaczmarek) to secretly snitch on her
unsuspecting lover's conduct.
The
jaded artists hatch a plan to defect to the West in 1952 following a
concert in East Berlin. But when only one of the two follows through
with the plan, they end up separated and terribly frustrated for the
next dozen years.
Thus
unfolds Cold War, a melancholy masterpiece written and directed by
Pawel Pawlikowski. His previous picture, Ida, won the Best Foreign
Film Oscar in 2015. This black & white romance drama has
deservedly landed a trio of nominations, in the Foreign Film,
Director and Cinematography categories.
Between
a sobering score and haunting settings, Pawlikowski has created the
perfect backdrop for a maudlin postmortem contemplating the fate of a
couple of star-crossed lovers.
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated
R
for sexuality, nudity and profanity
In
Polish. French, Russian, German, Italian and Croatian
Running
time: 89 minutes
Production
Companies: Opus Films / Polish Film Institute / Film4 / BFI / MK2
Films
Distributor:
Amazon Studios
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