Cold War (2018)
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski(2013-Ida)
Starring: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc
Language: Polish and French with English subtitles(in black and white)
Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950s Poland,
Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) composer and pianist at a folk-music academy.
He travels around the Polish remote countryside with his partner,
and a Communist Party official Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc).
Searching for untapped local fresh talent to form a group to
tour the Eastern Bloc.
During the audition process, Wiktor is taken interest with a blonde singer
and dancer Zula (Joanna Kulig). She from the city and not from the villages.
She auditions not with a folk song, but one from a Russian movie.
She sings okay.
She has also been in trouble with the law and was recently let out of
detention after she attacked her stepfather when he tried to assault her.
Wiktor insists that he wants her for her talent, not anything else.
Her talent and charisma are undeniable. His affair with her made Zula
into a star.
Wiktor irate when Polish authorities want Irena and Wiktor to add
a few numbers praising the Soviet Union and its leader, Stalin.
While performing in East Berlin, Wiktor plans his defect with Zula
but she never meets him at their planned rendezvous. He crosses the
border alone.
The mismatched couple begins one of the most painful romances,
a decade of falling apart and coming back together.
Stretches from Poland to Germany to Yugoslavia to France and back again.
A moving moment where Zula joined Wiktor in Paris and starts to
dance to "Rock Around the Clock" in a nightclub with much energy and passion.
A sad story of two broken lovers in a broken country who can't stand to
stay apart but also sometimes can't stand each other either.