COLD WAR

Review: Set in the Cold War of 1950’s Poland, a music director falls in love with a singer. They are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. He tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Actors: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Cedric Kahn, Jeanne Balibar, Adam Woronowicz, Adam Ferency, Slavko Sobin, Aloise Sauvage and Adam Szyszkowski
Year: 2018
Genre: Drama, Music and Romance
Conclusion: 5/5
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, Pawel Pawlikowski won the Best Director Award. This film was shown at the Festival and received a standing ovation of 18 minutes. Even though this has scenes in it of Poland and France (Paris) it also takes us to East Berlin and Yugoslavia. The cinematography is quite astonishing especially capturing each little bit of each country. I did feel like I had been to them all and got a flavour of what they were all like. This is directed by the same director who directed the incredible Ida (2013). The director based this on again, off again, love story on his own parents’ volatile relationship. The two leads are both excellent and you believed in their characters that they were playing. Apparently when Danny Boyle was down to direct the next Bond film, he considered Tomasz Kot to be the next Bond villain. The Bond producers disagreed with his choice. Could this be the reason why Danny Boyle left the project because of “creative conflicts”? For Tomasz Kot to do Cold War he had to learn to play the piano. Even though this film is filmed in black and white Pawel Pawlikowski originally meant to make Cold War in colour. A truly magnificent film.