“If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
Poland. 1949. Lugubrious pianist Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) has been hired to help sand the rough edges off the Mazurek folk ensemble and turn it into a class act. One of the singers vying for a spot in the fledgling troupe is the mercurial Zula (Joanna Kulig), on probation for stabbing her father. During the audition process, she catches Wiktor’s eye (and ear) with a rendition of the song “Two Hearts” (“Dwa serduszka”) that she’d heard in a movie once.
"Two hearts, four eyes
Crying all of the day and all of the night..."
It’s love at first note.
From there, Cold War tracks the two star-crossed lovers all over post-war Europe for the next fifteen years. From Warsaw to East Berlin; Paris to Yugoslavia and back again, moving towards its diminuendo back in Poland in 1964. At a Parisian soirée one evening, Zula is told that “time doesn’t matter when you are in love”, but how many compromises and sacrifices can love withstand before time runs out and the music stops?
Inspired by and dedicated to his parents, Pawlikowski begins Cold War with music and lingering close-ups on the faces of rural folk musicians as they perform straight to camera. The tempo of Cold War is driven by music. From the humble simplicity of folk music to the grandiose vulgarity of communist propaganda - that same folk music perverted to lionise Lenin and Stalin; from bebop and torch songs to Bill Haley and his Comets having a “Rock Around The Clock”.
But music isn’t the only thing driving the story. Early on, we see a workman attempting to hang a banner that reads “WE WELCOME TOMORROW". As he’s hammering in the final nail, he falls off his ladder, pulling the banner down with him. Perhaps the reason that they welcome tomorrow is because they don’t have a clue what tomorrow will bring. Not a bad metaphor for the struggles yet to come.
Cold War is masterfully constructed by the trinity of cinematographer Lukasz Zal (his crisp, clean monochrome photography commanding in the Academy ratio frame); the elliptical rhythmic editing of Jaroslaw Kaminski and, leading from the front, the conductor of the piece, Paweł Pawlikowski. With subtle grace notes of Fassbinder and Casablanca, Cold War is pitch perfect.
Cold War is in cinemas and on demand in the UK from Friday 31st August 2018.