In a Tumultuous World, Music is a Couple’s Salvation

Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig in "Cold War"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Paweł Pawlikowski’s historical drama, “Cold War,” begins with what may be one of the most distinct opening scenes of 2018, having the camera focus on several villagers in Poland as they sing and play instruments.  This introduces us into a world where these individuals find refuge in their art in order to get by during their day to day hardships.

From there, Pawlikowski delivers a story that unfolds by showing the love of music that two people share as they face the oppressive bleakness of the world around them.

In late 1940s Poland, a young woman named Zuzanna “Zula” Lichón (Joanna Kulig) is brought to live in a home with many other aspiring musicians, singers, and dancers, where they all audition to take part in a troupe that will tour across Europe.  Soon, Zula captures the attention of a musical director, Wiktor Warski (Tomasz Kot).  As time goes on and Zula and other artists perform around Europe, she and Wiktor long to escape to the West, where they’ll be able to exercise their creative freedom from having to take part in communist propaganda.  Although their situation is ideal at first, circumstances will arise that will bring significant changes to their lives.

Kulig provides a radiant performance as an individual whose character comes alive whenever she’s on a stage because that’s the place where her character seems to be at home, absorbing the spotlight and becoming one with her art. Through her spiritedness and love for singing and dancing, we see how much this acts as her escape from the harsh realities of her life.  However, as the movie goes on, Kulig exhibits Zula’s emotional pain as her relationship with Wiktor becomes more strained.  Her character goes through many changes during the film, and Kulig excels in showing the impact that every step of this journey has on her character.

Kulig and Kot have an intense on-screen chemistry that draws us into their love for each other and the troubled relationship that arises from jealousy and being apart for an extended period of time.  It’s a relationship that’s equal parts joyous and heartbreaking, and the way that their bond changes through a period of many years offers endless fascination.

The screenplay by Pawlikowski, Janusz Głowacki, and Piotr Borkowski does well in taking its time to establish the environment of the story.  The sequences that we spend at the artists’ residence, with the auditions and rehearsals, shows us the wealth of talent that comes out of these individuals whose lives have been upended by the horrors of war.  As we move onto the portions of the film with Zula touring around Europe with Wiktor and their fellow performers, it’s here where we receive a deeper sense of what performing means to her, which leads into Zula and Wiktor's powerful odyssey as they try to make their dreams of success come true.  This is a story that’s filled with complexities of its characters and settings, and it does much to show us the impacts that historical events of the narrative’s time period have on the lives of Zula, Wiktor, and others.

One of the many notable aspects of the movie is Łukasz Żal’s cinematography, which presents the film in gorgeous black and white.  This allows us to feel the chill and somberness of the Polish setting, while also presenting the other European settings, particularly France, in a beauty that shows an abundance of promise for the two main characters.  It’s impossible not to sink into the film as you behold the imagery that Żal conjures in order to help tell this story.

With the help of Zal’s camerawork, Pawlikowski excels in displaying the disheartening aura of the film’s beginning, the grandness of the performance sequences, to the heartrending nature of the relationship between Zula and Wiktor.  All of this makes “Cold War” a rich and layered story where love and music run deep, and I urge you to take this journey.

Grade: A