Cold War (2018, R)

As I said in my initial Oscar-nominations reaction post, this movie has made quite an impressive showing.  In addition to the more-expected Best Foreign Film nod, it’s also up for Best Director and Best Cinematography.  It’s neat to see both Roma and Cold War getting so much recognition this year outside the Best Foreign Film category.

In Poland in 1949, Wiktor, a musician, is involve in efforts to create a traveling music show that showcases rural folk songs and dances.  One performer who instantly catches his eye at the auditions is Zula, a determined young woman with a troubled past and an “it” factor he can’t quite explain.  Over the years, Wiktor and Zula slip in and out of relationships (but never, it seems, out of love) on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

It’s certainly a beautifully-made film.  The scenes in Poland have a desolate loveliness to them, the sleekness of 1950s Paris is brought to life quite handily, and all the music scenes are wonderfully done.  Pawel Pavlikowski does really nice things with the direction without it drawing attention to itself.

I’m not as drawn in by the story.  Part of the problem is that I’m really taken by the whole undertaking of the music show, the way it comes together and takes off, and especially the way Communist Party officials see an opportunity to use it as a propaganda vehicle as it becomes popular.  However, that’s used more as a jumping-off point for Wiktor and Zula’s love story, and while I do like that well enough – it’s clear that they’re both deeply in love with each other, but the circumstances of the war keep pulling them apart in a number of ways – it’s not as interesting to me as the premise that got it started in the first place.

The central performances by Tomasz Kot (Wiktor) and Joanna Kulig (Zula) are both strong.  In particular, I think Zula is a tricky needle to thread as a character.  In some ways, she’s a character we’ve seen a million times before, a strong-willed woman that a man falls head over heels for due to an undefinable something, one who’d probably be able to be happy with him if it weren’t for the choices she makes contrary to her own happiness.  But between the writing and Kulig’s performance, she feels like more than that boilerplate description.  Kulig shows Zula’s damage and how that affects her actions, and she recognizes when her motivations are for pure survival and refuses to apologize for doing whatever she thinks will give her her best chance.

Warnings

Sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.