Poland, 1 9 4 9. The Communist system holds auditions for hundreds of peasants, hoping to find a few good singers among them. Wiktor, one of the judges, is fascinated by the blond Zula, who is on parole after attacking her abusive father. Wiktor and Zula become lovers. The state-sponsored folk music ensemble is pressured into inserting pro-Stalinist propaganda into their songs. While touring East Berlin, Wiktor convinces Zula to flee to the West, but she fails to show up. Years later, Wiktor works in Paris as a composer, and meets Zula again, who married an Italian to obtain a Visa. He tries to help her make a career as a singer, but Zula is alcoholic, jealous of his previous girlfriend and thus has an affair with Michel. Zula returns to Poland. Whe Wiktor goes to Poland after her, he is sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp. Zula marries Kaczmarek, a Communist official, has a child with him, and thus Wiktor is freed in 1 9 6 4. Wiktor and Zula escape. They go to an abandoned church, swallow suicide pills and wait to die together, in love.
"Cold War" is a movie that works twofold: both as a character study of a love couple, and as an allegory on the Communist system which separated and ruined the lives of people. Similarly as Szabo's "Lovefilm", it manages to blend these two themes, romantic and political, by showing the exile of the couple in Paris and their tumultuous relationship, even though Pawel Pawlikowski's film is rather less clear as to why the two are constantly arguing, since some of their break-ups come out of nowhere. Just as Pawlikowski's "Ida", "Cold War" is also an ambitious and good, yet rather standard black-and-white European art-film, without much inspiration in either directing or writing, or some other kind of ingenuity to truly "match" its hype and high critical acclaim and awards. A few surprising moments are refreshing (when Wiktor asks Zula as to why she was sentenced for attacking he father, she gives a feisty response: "He mistook me for my mother and a knife showed him the difference!") whereas Pawlikowski leads an economic story, since every scene is justified to lead to the next chapter, trusting that the audience is intelligent enough to "read between the lines" in some more subtle depictions or solutions (for instance, the way Zula freed Wiktor from a labor camp by marrying official Kaczmarek). The brief episode on the Split riviera, where Wiktor witnesses Zula's guest performance, is also well done. However, "Cold War" is a good film that rarely truly traverses into greatness, since its grey approach did not lead to some more colorful creativity.
Grade:++
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