Cold War, Pawlikowski - 2018

R 1hr 29min Drama, Music, Romance

At first glance, the title and sparse pictures that announce this film on IMDB or in my case my Amazon Prime, make it appear to be a gritty version possibly of something like Red Sparrow, only B/W, to make it more of a period piece.  And considering the atmosphere we've been in since Trump has taken office, not taking sides here, just commenting...Cold War seems to be a more contemporary and relevant term that Millennials and 00s are getting to know, while the rest of us review Dr. Strangelove and Trumbo.

So, enthralled by the fact that this is Pawlikovski that directed (knew that name instantly when I saw it), and that it was included with my Prime membeship!  awesome....I took off time from my regularly scheduled 3 or 4 Film Fest films and watched this instead.  Ok, let me back up here....where in the world have I been, you may ask that you have not seen or even heard of this film yet?  Yes, it took a blogger on Tumblr of all places to bring my attention to it, and someone I'm not even following.  First of all, I missed the Oscars, not such a big deal, but since January I've seen over 190 films now for the Heartland International Film Festival.  So it took Pawel's name at the bottom of the row of Black and White stills from the movie to get my attention and look it up only to find that it swept awards in EU and was nominated for Oscars here.  Wow, instantly on the new "must watch" list.  So...like I said, I decided to take a break from HIFF and do this instead.  I really needed a full-length break into something else.

And as I mentioned, even up through the first 20 min. of this film, and beyond, I had the suspicion that this was one of those plot-driven works where she makes love with this man so he's thinking with his pants and she ends up spying in the U.S. and becoming some major faux-pas in the intelligence gap right after the war, and this is how she got in. 

Could not have been more wrong.  I'm going to enjoy going back now and viewing this again with the right frame of mind.  This is an analogous dance between the romance and the times, the times themselves being the echo and taking a back seat to the relationship on screen, a perfect mirror in fact, perfectly played as a game of ping-pong across the borders of 3 countries and 3 major cities, and they, the couple in love..with really no country to go to.  The Polish immigration official put it fairly accurately to Wiktor, the lead male character, "I don't know how to help you.  You are not French, and you're not a Pole either.  As far as we're concerned you don't exist."

But exist they did, for a time, always finding each other amid their other parallel lives. They become the object of hope that was carried through that time across the generation that followed the great war, and also the ultimate object of despair and resignation.  The ending is one of the most controversial and yet perfect ones I've ever seen.  But the stuff in between...wow...

 This is near perfect cinema.  I could go on and on and talk about the cinematic features of this film that make it the captivating and great piece of art, poetry, and especially music that it is, commenting mostly on the absolutely opaque similarity to films made in the 60s (if you had sat me in front of this with no indication of when it was made, it absolutely would have fooled me - a perfect rendition of that period, right down to the types of shots and cuts made and the grain and lighting- incredible film study here).  But I believe I'll drop off here and defer to a New Yorker article that does a better summary than I could. (see this link: CLICK HERE).  Instead, I believe I'll do a follow up at some point with another post at a later time, and just say this...I rarely go directly to the purchase page and buy the BluRay version of any film.  This one...no brainer...I got it right away.  Will be here tomorrow.

In the meantime...See the film.



- Agitatus