Exquisite story of love in the margins
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
COLD WAR
(84 minutes)
Comedy Theatre, August 12, 7.00pm
Forum, August 14, 4.00pm
Polish-born, British-based Pawel Pawlikowski repeats the stylistic choice of his 2015 Oscar-winning Ida for Cold War, shooting in black and white and in the narrow 4:3 format.
It gives his story about a doomed love affair spanning a decade and straddling the Iron Curtain an air of both nostalgia and chilliness that’s in keeping with its themes of separation, longing and jazzy cool.
Music is the thread that runs through the affair between Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig). They meet in 1949 when he is a field researcher recording Polish folk songs on the brink of disappearing and she is auditioning for a school dedicated to keeping them alive.
As Stalinism begins to seep into every aspect of Polish life, the pair plots to flee to the West but at the last moment Zula backs out.
Over the years, they rekindle their love in snatched moments in Yugoslavia, in Paris, even in a Polish prison camp, before finally finding the freedom to explore it fully – only to realise their love thrives best in the margins.
Full of aching, ecstasy and anger, this is a remarkable and beautiful film about a love that is possible only when it borders on the impossible.