Cold War’s stunning love story
Cold War is a love story. However, it’s a love story set across physical and emotional landscapes that do not lend themselves easily to the passions and obsessions of the human players.
Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is a musical director and musician touring the snow-covered Polish countryside in the years immediately after World War II, looking for songs and music to maybe incorporate in a show.
Next to him, the quiet and watchful Irena (Agata Kulesza) records and observes. A government functionary with some ill-defined but sinister purpose shadows the pair everywhere, making his own recordings, hinting at strife to come.
When the beautiful and soulful Zula (Joanna Kulig) strides into Wiktor’s orbit, he is immediately smitten.
What follows is a decade-long ricochet across Europe, as the starcrossed pair try to find a city and a place within themselves where they might be able to pause and allow their affair to grow.
I loved this film and these people. I loved their insecurities, uncertainties, passions and the way that music is a constant companion and guiding force in their lives.
The soundtrack in Cold War is not in the background to be merely heard. Music is pushed to the front of the film, to be listened to and travelled with. While Zula contemplates Wiktor after a brief but telling argument, Billie Holiday’s The Man I Love is on the radio. The pair fall in love – incontrovertibly – to Louis Jordan’s Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby.
Most film-makers struggle for one perfect on-screen moment in their careers. Pawel Pawlikowski delivers a good handful in every film.
Cold War is a sparse film that does everything it needs to in a perfectly weighted 89 minutes.
Pawlikowski’s decision to shoot in black and white, and 1.37.1 ratio (Academy ratio) explicitly evokes the best of 1930s cinema, which was all that could be seen in 1940s Poland, while also allowing Pawlikowski to push his contrasts of light and dark into places that would look ludicrous in colour.
There is plenty of justification for this hyperrealist approach, beyond the sheer gorgeousness of what Pawlikowski is getting on to the screen. Anyone who has seen his 2013 Ida will understand.
Cold War is an evocation of love, music, passion and heartbreak set against ice, rubble and fear. It is a lean and perfect gem. Hurricane (M, 107 mins) Directed by David Blair Reviewed by James Croot ★★★
Having already witnessed the Germans lay waste to Warsaw and paralyse Paris within a year of World War II starting, Jan Zumbach (Iwan Rheon) is determined to do all he can to stop them winning total control of Europe.
Managing to evade their clutches in France by posing as a Swiss watch salesman, the Polish pilot, like some of his compatriots, makes his way to England in the hopes of joining the RAF.
However, despite their own somewhat parlous state, the Brits are suspicious of these foreign flyboys. Particular concerns about a lack of English and knowledge of imperial measurements see them deemed fit only for bombing duty until the authorities are forced to admit they need all the help they can get and that these Poles have plenty of aerial skills and nous.
Under the watchful eye of Canadian John Kentowski (Hacksaw Ridge’s Milo Gibson), the 303 Squadron begin to more than prove their worth, although there are still those jealous of their prowess, fearlessness and ability to woo the local ladies.
Alternatively titled Mission of Honour in some countries, director David Blair (TV’s Accused and The Street) works best when focused on the derring-do and dogfights, rather than contrived romantic dalliances.
Yes, as with the superior, similarly set 2001 Czech tale Dark Blue World, the story is sidetracked by the new pilots’ liaisons with some of their workmates.
Here, there’s even a whole subplot involving good-time girl Phyllis Lambert (Crooked House’s Stefanie Martini) suffering sexual harassment at the hands of her superiors.
While it allows for a welcome added dimension to Martini’s character arc, it is frustratingly left unresolved, as if it was forgotten about in the edit suite. It’s one of a few annoying loose ends throughout the near two-hour running time, as secondary characters’ stories are picked up and then dropped.
Thankfully, there’s some solid action sequences (shot using a combination of replicas, a real Hurricane, visual effects and what looks like archival footage), a dash of cross-cultural humour and an impressive performance from Game of Thrones’ bad boy Rheon (who played the villainous Ramsay Bolton on the fantasy drama).
Blair makes great use of his main man’s pallid complexion and insomniac eyes to create a character clearly haunted by all that he has witnessed.
Delivering plenty of tears and triumph before tea time (albeit with a nasty true-life sting in its final text summary), Hurricane could just have benefited from a slightly tighter focus.