Cold War

Love in a cold climate.

"the great sweeping humanists, and profound films. A cinema of personal vision, very strong social commitment and a poetic responsibility...great emotional and visceral power. They are serious films". Martin Scorsese, introduction to the masterpieces of Polish cinema festival

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A mesmerising and sophisticated film, Cold War is a deeply evocative portrait of the impossibility of love amidst the ruins of post-war Poland. 

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Cold War is crafted with such exactitude that it is the complete cinematic experience. Emotionally, visually, and musically- each element evokes the central theme and arc of the characters, creating a heartbreaking viewing experience. It is visually outstanding with exquisite, languid cinematography, musically astute and visceral, with  gripping central performances. 

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The experience of this film is akin to the cool cigarette- you can feel the smoke rings practically swirling off the screen and dangling in mid air. It is melancholic, tragic and affecting.  All one has to do is luxuriate in the atmosphere that is generated. 

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Cold War ruminates on the impossibility of a volatile love affair and the lovers' inability to reconnect. The film depicts a couple who keep searching for one another, trying to recapture their once blazing love whilst attempting to make a new life together in a foreign country. The theatre of the cold war creates a tense and immediate situation, but the couple's fragile and volatile relationship is captivating and heartbreaking. It is satisfying to watch a deeply-felt human drama, two people trying to reconnect through extraordinary circumstances. 

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When I left the cinema, I felt dazed. This is what cinema should be. To wrap one up into a completely different world. It is profoundly moving. It is a deeply personal film in which Pawlikowski is rediscovering his homeland and the disappointments of renewal. 

The film begins in a freezing post-war Poland. Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Irena (Agata Bielecka) travel around Polish towns recruiting singers for a state-sponsored troupe that will travel around the Soviet Union showcasing Polish culture. Whilst auditioning singers, Tomasz is drawn to the beguiling and charismatic Zula (Joanna Kulig) who has a uniquely beautiful voice and displays a sophistication and confidence others lack. Wiktor remarks that she has "energy, spirit, she's original".  Wiktor and Zula begin an obsessional love affair. He is not only drawn to her beauty and volatility, but as a serious jazz musician, he sees a talent that could make success for them both. When Wiktor confronts Zula about the rumors that she killed her father , she tells him "he thought I was my mother and I showed him". This sets up the dichotomy between Wiktor and Zula's character - he is serious and grounded while she is wild and volatile. 

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Events change when a Polish minister requests that they incorporate communist propaganda into their show. Irena says no, but the opportunistic Kaczerek (Borys Szyc) who runs the company acquiesces to the minister. When the group is on tour in Berlin, Wiktor suggests to Zula that they cross into the West. Wiktor waits patiently for Zula, but she neve comes, so he crosses the border alone. This begins the split in their relationship as they are never quite the same again.  

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Whilst the first half of the film depicts the languid Polish countryside and the grubbiness and poverty of the communist regime, the second half of the film has more energy- which matches the sense of freedom in the west and the volatility of Wiktor and Zula's relationship. 

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Wiktor, now settled in Paris, works in a nightclub and scores music for films. A year later, Wiktor travels to Yugoslavia to see Zula performing. Whilst he is in the theatre, he is spotted by the secret police and put on a train back to Paris. Another two years later, Tomacz is in Paris again, scoring films. Zula comes by the cafe and tells him that she married an Italian so that she could obtain a visa to get to Paris. We then see her singing in the jazz club, her Polish song arranged into a jazz style. The camera languidly pans around from the band, to her and Wiktor. It is mesmerising and haunting. Wiktor now attempts to make her a singer but she struggles with the new culture. Zula is unhappy with translating her Polish song in French. When they attend a party hosted by Wiktors  producer friend Michel (Cedric Kahn), she strides up to the French poetess Juliette (Jeanne Balibar) and confronts her about her views on love and the idea that time cannot dim true love. As Juliette comments on what a culture shock it must have been for Zula coming to Paris, she becomes  defensive and volatile and becomes drunk. When Wiktor confronts her, she reveals her insecurities about who she is in Paris. Wiktor tells her he embellished her backstory. They carry on  to the nightclub where she dances to rock 'n' roll. "In Poland you were a man, I don't believe in you". Zula finds recording her new French record difficult. What should be her greatest moment is unfulfilling - she is lost in a foreign land. She reveals she had an affair with Michel and disappears. Wiktor ultimately betrays friends in order to return to Poland. 

Zula visits him in the labor camp where he has been sentenced to 15 years as a defector. They both look defeated, Wiktor especially with a damaged hand which signals the end of his career. They still desperately love one another. Five years later Wiktor turns up at a club that Kaczmarek owns and where Zula is the star. She turns up drunk and begs Wiktor to rescue her. They both travel to the abandoned church form earlier in the film where they exchange vows and line up pills to take their own lives. They then sit on the bench together overlooking the Polish countryside. 

Tomas Kots performance is elegant and restrained, possessing the quality of stillness. He portrays Wiktor as someone who is clearly madly in love, but also needs Zula, as much as he longs for her. While Kot is elegant and temperate, Joanna Kulig is riveting to watch. She goes through wildness, lugubriousness, and her sensuousness is akin to Lea Seydoux or Jeanne Moreau. Pawlikowski encouraged Kulig to watch Luaren Bacall movies. Her magnificent face dominates the frame. 

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“Orson Welles says every performance looks better in black and white…you focus on the performance, not the look of the people. And it enables you to capture the period better”- Peter Bogdanovich 

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There is something magical and sophisticated about black and white and it certainly does heighten the performances of the film. The photography in this film is beautiful—the lighting and the contrast is remarkable. Seeing Cold War reminded me of the Classical Hollywood films I love so much- like Casablanca, but also the spirit of La Nouvelle Vague and most definitely the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

Pawlikowski's choice to use black and white is very fitting. It allows the audience to focus on the story and particularly the magnetic performances of the actors. It fits the tone of the story and image of  post-war Poland. 

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What I found mesmerizing about this film is how the camera work matches the tone of the film so astutely. It is as if Pawlikowski is painting with the camera. Each shot is imbedded with a feel for character and story. In the first half of the film, he employs a languid camera that reminded me of Tarkovsky's films especially in the scenes of the Polish countryside. The second half of the film is energetic, reminiscent of Godard.  It appears that the movement of the camera imitates Zula’s new-found freedom. This is exemplified by the scene in the bar where Zula dances to rock 'n' roll- first on the table and then on the dancefloor. 

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Pawlikowki previously collaborated with cinematographer Zal on Ida in 2013- another film beautifully shot in black and white. His extraordinary cinematography earned him his second Academy Award nomination for best cinematography. Zal has said that Cold War had to be in Black and White:

“In Poland there was no color in those days, in those years. Everything was black and white…there was communism….everything was grey...the idea was to have a very contrasted look in this movie because the story was very contrasted...the relationship was very contrasted and very tumultuous and messy. Going back and forth, meeting each other, betraying each other. So there was this idea that, visually, the movie should be very contrasted. We wanted to have a strong black and a very bright white.” 

There are evidently several influences for this film. 

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As well as Classical Hollywood, Tarkovsky and the New Wave, Zal was also inspired by the photography of Ralph Gibson and  Helmut Newton for contrast of black and white. He further looked to the great photographs of jazz musicians in the 1950s as well as photographs of the Stalinist period.  

There is a particular sequence in the Polish countryside, which demonstrates a clear sense of beauty and simplicity. The cinematography does imply a nostalgia for an image of Poland- the Poland of Pawlikowkis parents. These sequences are reminiscent of Tarkovsky's Mirror or perhaps even Terrence Malick and Days of Heaven. The landscape becomes part of the emotional landscape. 

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There is one scene in particular where the camera is almost languid. Zula and Wiktor are spending the afternoon lazing together in the Polish countryside. It is a beautiful close-up in which Tomasz is lying down and Zula is beside him- resting her head on her hand. The couple are in the foreground with the blades of grass rustling around them amongst the sound of chirping birds. The camera follows Zula as they have an argument and she jumps into the river. The camera languidly tracks her through the grass as she floats and sings a Polish song. It is beautiful and haunting and shows how she is wedded to her country- unlike Wiktor. During the argument they talk about religion- she is religious and believes they'll be together forever. Here again, the beautiful photography belies the simmering tension beneath the couple and their essential differences. 

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There are too many exquisite camera sequences in this film: from the moment Zula first betrays Wiktor by not crossing the border, to the glorious two-shot when they reunite years later after his being in the camp. The sequence where Zula dances to rock 'n' roll triggers the camera or the simple reflection of Wiktors hands in the varnished wood as he plays the piano.  Zula is usually at the center of the frame and draws people to her - symbolizing intense magnetism. 

The use of music in Cold War is exquisite and astutely reveals story and character. The film includes beautiful Polish folk songs, through to jazz of the early 60s in Paris, Glenn Goldberg and early rock ‘n’ roll. Pawlikowski demonstrates how music is a thread through our lives and heightens our stories. 

At the very beginning of the film Pawlikowski films close-ups of local Polish people singing straight to the camera. This connotes that Pawlikowski is placing Polish culture and tradition at the center of the film. Oral and musical traditions are one of the ways in which communities pass on the stories and traditions of their culture. It further underlines how this is a deeply personal story about the director's homeland. This is the beginning of the musical journey of the film.

There isn’t a score per se, but the songs are arranged by Marcin Masecki.

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Leitmotif is used beautifully in Cold War. In fact, the music is almost another character in the film. The leitmotif in this film is the recurrence of the song called ‘Two hearts, four eyes’ – a song about forbidden love. At the beginning of the film, Wiktor and Irena discover a young Polish girl singing ‘Two hearts, four eyes’. She sings it in such a pure way that Wiktor chooses this song for Zula to sing. 

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This song becomes the symbol of Wiktor and Zulas relationship as it occurs in different forms throughout the film. Zula starts to sing the song whilst she and Wiktor are in the Polish group. It is almost as if she is singing directly to him. When Wiktor travels to see Zula in Yugoslavia, she is singing the song as she spots him in the audience, which reinforces their forbidden love. Zula sings a jazz arrangement of the song when she is in a Paris nightclub after fleeing Poland. It is a hauntingly beautiful version, made more poignant now that she is in France and away from her homeland.Zula struggles to convert the song into French and declares that the words just aren’t right. This is indicative of how they have been unable to transfer their love to Paris, how it is not working in a new culture.

One of the lyrics of her new song is “the pendulum has killed time” meaning that time cannot stop the love two people feel for one another. Zula, however, does not seem to agree. At the listening party for her new record she seems completely lost and unable to identify with herself anymore as she does not feel comfortable or connected to her culture whilst living in Paris. She is alienated.

A further example of how Pawlikowski uses music to signal character is when we see Wiktor in the jazz club in Paris, he is playing Louis Jordans “Is You Is Or Is You Ain't baby”. When Zula dances to “rock around the clock” it further signals Zulas and Wiktor’s estrangement because the coming of rock ‘n’ roll sees the end of jazz- the music that Wiktor loves. Embodies her new-found freedom.

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"...What am i going to be there? Who will I be?" 

Cold War explores the possibility that renewal does not necessarily bring joy. The main characters' move to Paris does not bring them the personal happiness they envisaged and Zula feels cut off  from her  homeland. Wiktor is happy playing jazz in nightclubs and scoring for films. He becomes part of a bourgeois circle of French artists, writers and musicians. He is able to assimilate but Zula declares "my life was better in Poland".  Zula is a free-spirit , but also insecure- she feels lost in Paris. Wiktor implores Zula to "believe in yourself" . She responds : "I do- its you i don't believe in."  

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This sense of disappointment is evident in other films released the same year as Cold War which also depict artists fleeing their homeland during the Cold War and crossing the iron curtain. Both White Sparrow and Never Look Away are two examples of the struggles faced by those who try to begin again in a different country.

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Zula and Wiktor are courageous individuals who seem to be in an endless tussle with fate. Zula appears to struggle with the loyalty between Wiktor and loyalty to homeland. Both have experienced war-torn Poland in which betrayal is just another part of survival.

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Indeed, Pawlikowski's films are centred around the outsider: My Summer of Love, Woman In the Fifth,Ida.  Pawlikowski has said in interviews that his films reflect where is at that moment in his life. At the time of making Ida , he spoke about feeling out of place whilst living in Paris and talked about being out of place and ready to go back to his Polish homeland. 

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Indeed this is a very personal and emotional film for Pawlikowski- a continuation of rediscovering his homeland. He dedicates the film to his parents, who themselves had a tempestuous marriage.  This film is very much about identity. With Ida,  he has explored its historical and religious complexity. Cold War too is about the burden of the war and historical events. In Cold War, we see the burden of history on the characters.People are worn down by compromise and hardship.

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Religion and tradition in Poland is present here also.  In the first half of the film, the singing troupe discover an abandoned and ruined church deep in the Polish countryside. The camera lingers in a magisterial shot upon the beauty of the church. At the end of the film, Zula and Wiktor return to this church where they mimic a marriage ceremony before taking pills. They then sit on a bench together overlooking a large field. This scene and final shot of the film evokes a real spirituality. As mentioned above, after being away from Poland, Pawlikowski appears to film the countryside in an almost transcendent manner. 

Cold War is in line with the Polish cinema of poetic and visceral film-making. Pawlikowski's film is a deeply personal story about his homeland, based on his parents' relationship and where he examines the disappointments of renewal. He explores the impossibility of love and two contrasting characters inability to reconnect- all which is refracted in the sublime cinematography.