Zimna wojna (2018) Reviews

• Aesthetically perfect, narratively frustrating

  Bertaut2018-09-07

  Reading around some of the reviews of Zimna wojna, I recognise that this should have been a film I liked, loved even, as so much of what these critics are praising are exactly the kinds of things I myself often look for in a film. It's one of the best reviewed films of the year, and I freely acknowledge there's a huge amount to praise here, with elements of the visual design borderline genius. However, all the aesthetic brilliance in the world doesn't hide what, for me, is its single greatest flaw - it just left me utterly cold; I didn't care about the two main characters, and I didn't buy their relationship. Yes, I'm aware that emotional detachment is exactly what it was going for, and it's probably unfair to criticise a film for successfully doing what it intended to do, but when it ended, all I could think was "meh." Although, to be fair, that may say more about myself than the film. Written by , , and , and directed by Pawlikowski, who loosely based the story on events in his parents' lives, the plot of Zimna wojna is simplicity itself. The film begins in 1949, two years since a communist government came to power and the country was provisionally renamed Rzeczpospolita ludowa (Polish People's Republic). It opens with composer and pianist Wiktor ( ), his ethnomusicologist producer Irena ( ), and rigid state-sponsored overseer Kaczmarek ( ) travelling through the isolated rural communities of the Polish countryside, recording folk songs and attempting to find recruits for a folk music school, with the aim of putting together an ensemble to perform nationally, and hopefully, internationally. Wiktor is bored out of his mind with the repetitive nature of the work, until a young woman named Zula (an extraordinary ) comes to the school to audition. Although she doesn't fit the profile of what they are looking for - she's from the city rather than the countryside, is rumoured to have spent time in prison for killing her father, and performs not a folk song at her audition, but a piece from a Soviet film - and although Irena points out there are better singers, Wiktor argues that she has "something different." Irena, who may or may not be in love with Wiktor, immediately recognises that he's enamoured with Zula, but he assures her he's acting out of pure professionalism. Of course, he isn't, and soon enough, he and Zula are in the midst of a passionate relationship. The rest of the film takes place over 20 years and four countries (Poland, France, Yugoslavia, and East Germany), but it never branches out from the central relationship. There are no subplots or significant supporting characters; the narrative is pared down to within an inch of its life, with every scene, every line of dialogue, every action, existing only in relation to this focal driving force. So, to look first at some aspects of the film which I liked. The aesthetic is absolutely unparalleled, as Pawlikowski and director of photography allow the visual design to both originate from and convey thematic points, a truly extraordinary example of form and content blending into one another. As an example, the film is exquisitely shot in Academy ratio (1.37:1), which has the effect of confining the characters within the frame. The nature of the film lends itself to sweeping vistas and cityscapes captured in anamorphic (2.39:1), but, instead, Pawlikowski and Zal use the box-like nature of the Academy frame to trap the characters, meaning they don't seem free even when standing in the vast open countryside or in Paris at night. The epic nature of the narrative and the confined frame work in a kind of ironic symbiosis to visually convey the important theme of the tensions within and between the characters; freedom and confinement constantly working against one another. Another example of the synergy between form and content is the use of focus. For example, in the opening scene, the shallow focus creates a depth of field so small that the village just behind the in-focus singers is completely flattened. This renders it visually inaccessible, and thus compels the audience to concentrate fully on nothing except the foreground singers. Compare this with the scene where Kaczmarek is giving a speech extolling the glory of the state and the prestige of the school to a collection of bored students, all the while a cow is wandering around in the mud behind him. The use of a deeper focus here than in the opening means that the cow falls within the larger depth of field, and can be clearly seen, once again directing the audience's attention, only this time that attention is directed away from the foreground character as opposed towards him. The cow, obviously enough, serves as a commentary, telling us exactly what Pawlikowski thinks of Kaczmarek's speech, and the ideologies underpinning it. Another scene of this ilk is when a worker is attempting to hang a "We welcome tomorrow" banner on the front of the music school, under directions from Kaczmarek. However, falling from his ladder (and by the sounds of it, falling to his death), the banner is never hung, hanging limply across one side of the building. Again, as with the cow, this is Pawlikowski criticising the state-sanctioned machinery introduced by the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers' Party) since 1948. Of course, the communists are not "welcoming tomorrow" - they are far more interested in the past, which is why they are collecting folk songs; in an effort to create a Politburo-approved musical tradition designed to instil both national pride and political conformity, by rejecting the "western" rock & roll music of tomorrow in favour of a musical past. Speaking of music, in relation to the way the opening scene is shot, it instantly becomes clear how vital a part of the story music and singing are. As the narrative develops, music becomes Wiktor and Zula's everything - they derive hope from it, they imbue it with their feelings, it brings them together, it drives them apart, it even comes to symbolise the strange bond between them, never moreso than when Wiktor refers to an album on which they have been collaborating as "our child." Another structural aspect that is exceptionally well handled is how Pawlikowski designs the time jumps, as the film skips forward to the next instalment in the story. When a sequence is finished, the film cuts to black, and then, using a variation of a J cut, the sound from the next scene can be heard a few seconds prior to the image being seen. Furthermore, that sound is usually music, reemphasising just how important music is to these characters. Interestingly however, the last few time jumps don't use music to introduce the incoming scene, perhaps referring to the changes in the characters' circumstances at this stage of the film, the darker ideological underpinnings of their psyches. In relation to this, it's also worth pointing out that once we get to the second half of the film, the two leads almost never smile (not that they smiled that much in the first half). Ironically enough, the character who smiles the most is probably Kaczmarek. So, having spent all this time waxing lyrical about aspects of the film which impressed me, why did I not enjoy it? As I said above, there's a huge amount to admire here, the craft is exceptional, but, at the end of the day, this is a romance. And it doesn't work as a romance. Yes, it's not what you would call a standard romance by any means, the character motivations and justifications that you'd see in other narratives of this ilk (not just filmic texts) are absent here, and maybe because of that, although there was undeniable chemistry between the leads, I just didn't buy their seemingly insatiable compulsion to seek one another out, sleep together, hurt one another, and then split up. The problem is, this exact template happens about five times - they meet, have a great time for a while, argue over something, and one runs off. Wash, rinse, repeat. And even at only 85 minutes, this kind of structural repetition becomes, well, repetitive, as I increasingly found myself asking "why are these two even together?" To give you an example of what I'm talking about, during one particular argument, after Zula finds out Wiktor has been lying to people about her background, he explains, "I wanted to give you more colour". Seriously? These are two people who have precious little respect for one another; beneath all the eroticism and physical attraction, they are simply two irreparably damaged people trying to save one another, living with a co-dependency, but instead hastening each other towards destruction. And as I couldn't buy into the believability of the romance, the entire enterprise floundered; it never achieves the status it seems to be aiming for, that of cathartic high-tragedy. And although the end is very well done, and the last line is spectacular, it left me unmoved, because, by that stage, I just didn't care. True, the structure of the film and the insanely tight editing means that events in their lives are glanced at rather than lingered over, so the kind of nuances and character beats you'd often expect are absent, with the audience being allocated no time to become enveloped by the emotions on screen. As the narrative is built on ellipses and omissions, many (in fact, almost all) of the standard romantic tropes simply aren't present. By design, the film is barren and emotionally impenetrable, and in that sense, Pawlikowski seems to have been attempting to construct as detached a narrative as he possibly could. If anything, he succeeds too well.

• A beautifully composed poem of doomed love in Cold War Europe

  asifahsankhan2018-06-25

  Less is most definitely more in Cold War. Using the same academy ratio and frosty black and white from the Oscar-winning Ida, the Polish auteur's new film tells the tale of a tragic romance between a musician and a singer, spanning fifteen years and the fractured continent of post-war Europe. We first see Wictor (Tomasz Kot) in the depths of a Polish winter in 1949, as he and fellow musicologist Irena (Agata Kulesza) putter around the frozen landscape in a truck, recording folk music wherever they find it. Along with administrative bureaucrat Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc), a school is set up to harvest young talent and create an ensemble to celebrate Polish musical culture and tradition. Competition is fierce but one candidate catches Wictor's eye, a young blonde student called Zula (Joanna Kulig). She's ambitious and sly and it's rumoured she killed her father: 'He mistook me for my mother and I used a knife to show him the difference'. Wictor falls hard and, despite the dangers inherent in the situation and the fact that Zula might even be informing on him, a love affair begins. As concerts are given and the school proves its value, so the state intervenes and folk music gives way to propaganda, with songs about the joys of agricultural reform and the wonder of Stalin. The group also tours abroad to export a vision of peasant authenticity and associated Soviet values. At this point, Wictor decides he's had enough and plans to use a trip to Berlin to cross with Zula to freedom and the West. Zula, however, uncertain and afraid, misses her chance and Wictor crosses alone. So their love affair becomes as fractured as Europe, but crucially their serial separations are caused as much by their own decisions as by any external political forces. Zula's lack of courage is one such moment, but she also tells Wictor: 'I would never have crossed without you'. Pawlikowski has structured his film in a series of economic scenes, separated by fade-to-black lacunas where years pass, unseen and mute, and opportunities are irredeemably lost. Lukasz Zal's simply sublime cinematography now replaces the snowy tones of Poland for the cigarette-smoke greys, nightclub dark and sharp neon whites of Paris. The music also evolves from folk to propaganda and then to jazz and a quick burst of drunken rock n' roll. Later, it will find an atrocious denouement in the kind of 'Boom-Boody-Boom' Eurotrash, giving the sense that the world has moved an insuperable distance from Wictor and Zula's beginnings. Wictor and Zula are both played with aplomb by Kot and Kulig, neither falling into the stereotypes that others would have them be. Despite his garret flat, he's not the tortured artist and, for all the damage done, she's no simple femme fatale. They are flawed and wilful - liable to jealousy and a free hand with the booze - but their mistakes are punished disproportionately and therefore unjustly. The borders might separate them, but they also imbue their love with a stoic tragic heroism. Pawlikowski's Cold War is dedicated to his parents, on whose love affair it is loosely based. It is an appropriately beautiful and sympathetic tribute. This is the refined work of an artist at the peak of his powers. A true masterpiece.

• Another romanticized dysfunctional relationship

  cguldal2019-01-09

  Stunningly filmed with two actors who're very nice to look at and some great (and some purposefully, humorously cringe-worthy) music. Yet, it is hard to feel for the characters, one an almost-alcoholic, self-destructive woman who doesn't think much of herself, and the other, a stupidly loyal man. It's not clear, especially when they meet in France, what they have together that keeps them in love. There seem to be real problems, but we only glimpse at them without much development. It's baffling that he'd leave his freedom and risk being captured and tortured to go back to Poland just for her. The love they so value is not well developed, we do not see it really form and bond them. We see some lust, some physicality, and a lot of betrayal (on her part). The ending will frustrate many people. Comes a bit out of the blue. Why not continue to ruin each other's lives? Sadly, this is a film where form dazzles, but content leaves much to be desired.

• Completely engrossing and stunningly beautiful. An arthouse masterpiece.

  markgorman2018-09-04

  The first thing to state about this beautiful movie is that it's monochrome. So stunningly so that at times you feel you are in a photographic gallery rather than a cinema. The quality of the cinematography is quite extraordinary thanks to Lucas Zal. It's also in 4:3 format. Not the square format of Instagram, but close. We don't see 4:3 very often these days but Wes Anderson used it to immense effect in Grand Budapest Hotel and so did Lazslo Melis in Son of Saul. It's an engaging format that draws you in. It suggests a time before cinemascope (16:9 etc) and only really works in period cinema of a time. This time. But it also lends itself to incredible framing, such as when our female protagonist floats down a river gradually disappearing out of shot, and later in the movie when the chief protagonists leave a bus and walk out of frame in a composition that Henri Cartier Breson would be proud of. It's one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in many years. In truth that's probably its biggest strength. It is, but it isn't really, narrative driven. More episodic than story driven but it does tell a tale about director Pawel Pawlikowski's parents' love affair set against the Cold War backdrop in his native Poland. It's fairly sordid in a way (his mother was abused by her father as a child) but without anything shocking to see. Imagine, yes. The two leads ( Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot) are magnificent. Brooding, beautiful (although unconventionally so) and real. Lucas Zal has a great time dwelling on three particular things. Crowd shots. Amazing, Dance sequences. Amazing. Joanna Kulig (the lead). Amazing. In particular, Joanna Kulig has a stand out performance. She's not one to show her enjoyment in life. Sullen most would say. But it is an immense performance. It's a love story, set against the challenges that Cold War Poland put in front of people of artistic belief where communist doctrine made creativity very difficult. What Pawel Pawlikowski achieves is a mood piece of exemplary, peerless really, detail. And it's a musical. I was constantly drawn to comparing it to La La Land, yet it is so NOT La La Land. Partly it's down to Kulig who shares the unorthodox looks (beauty) of Emma Stone. Partly it's the framing of Zal. And the music fuses from Polish country folk to French basement jazz (which La La Land would have been so comfortable with). This is an Oscar nomination shoe in. It's absolutely brilliant. And, at 88 minutes, certainly does not outstay its welcome. Bravo! A Straight 10 from me.

• Beautiful to watch but lacks in story telling or connection

  mageh2018-12-22

  I agree with many reviewers here. It is beautiful cinematography, but the story is loose and doesn't make sense or engage you enough. It left me cold and more than that, the female was really irritating. I understand what the director was trying to say: i came from that region too, but some story lines don't make sense. As patriotic as you can feel, you don't choose communistic Poland or any communist country over amazing Paris (especially when you are an artist) AND leave your soulmate behind. That is why many people were trying to escape. May be she was nostalgic or couldn't connect emotionally to French culture, as an artist? It is not very clear from the script. In overall, she was pictured as spoiled selfish "femme fatale" that ruined their chance for happiness while he has weak personality, that sacrifices his life and freedom for ungrateful partner. May be this is unconditional love? I didn't find her attractive either for some reason, while he fits the part better. For me, unlike Ida that was amazing, this is only 6/10.