Cold War (Zimna wojna)

Director Paweł Pawlikowski

Director Paweł Pawlikowski with actress Joanna Kulig

Pawlikowski with actor Tomasz Kot, actress Joanna Kulig (left), and actor Borys Szyc (right)

COLD WAR (Zimna wojna)              B+                  

Poland  France  Great Britain  (90 mi)  2018  d:  Pawel Pawlikowski

Through this world, you will enter a world of music, song, and dance.

―Irena (Agata Kulesza)

Paweł Pawlikowski pays tribute to his parent’s generation (actually dedicating this film to his parents) in this follow-up to the Oscar-winning 2014 Top Ten List #2 Ida, returning once again to Poland with a curiously updated Dr. Zhivago-style epic romance set against the grim backdrop of Europe after WWII, shot in crisp black and white by Łukasz Żal, returning to the 4:3 aspect ratio showing a self-contained world, spanning more than a decade from the late 40’s to the early 60’s, where it’s something of a romanticized love letter to surviving through bleak times, using an atypical style, as this is at heart an unconventional song and dance musical, moving from folk songs to free-form jazz.  Props must go out to musician Marcin Masecki for all the jazz and song arrangements, and dance choreographer Stefano Terrazzino, aided by Grzegorz Cherubiński, Anna Pas, and Piotr Zalipski for the singlemost show-stopping number of the film, but the story is loosely based on the Mazowsze Dance Group, a Polish Folk Song and Dance Ensemble (The History of Mazowsze - Our history - State Folk Group of Song and ...) that still exists today.  Winner of the Best Director award at Cannes this year, the story is set in the ruins of post-war Poland, following the exploits of a brooding pianist/composer named Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), a sophisticated and educated man from the city, and a wild singer/dancer called Zula (Joanna Kulig), posing as a peasant girl from the countryside, with notably different backgrounds and temperaments, yet they are fatally attracted to one another despite character differences, regional borders and political boundaries, each caught in different countries in the 1950’s, traveling through Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia, and Paris, separated by time and the unfortunate twists of fate, yet somehow they maintain what amounts to a mismatched love affair, as passionate as it is destructive.  Described as “an impossible love story in impossible times,” the real Wiktor and Zula (the actual names of the director’s parents) died in 1989 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, having spent the previous forty years together on and off, breaking up, and then chasing after each other on both sides of the Iron Curtain.  According to the director, “They were both strong, wonderful people, but as a couple a neverending disaster.” 

At the outset, Wiktor and Irena (Agata Kulesza from IDA) are musical collaborators scouring the countrysides and recording folk songs, eventually auditioning singers and dancers for a musical group called the Mazurek ensemble (inspired by the Mazowsze troupe) that showcase the authentic sounds of Poland, declaring “No more will the art of the people go to waste!”  There is something of a playful beginning, with the free-spirited Zula pretending to be a village girl, singing a harmonized duet with another girl she just met while standing in line, but she stands out (though Irena notes the other girl has perfect pitch), with Wiktor asking her to sing a solo, but instead of performing a Polish mountain tune she surprisingly sings a Russian song, claiming she learned it from a traveling Russian movie.  While Irena detects a con job, Wiktor sees “something else,” growing fascinated by her talent and vibrant energy, asking at one point whether the rumors are true that she was jailed for killing her father, and without missing a beat she blurts out, “He mistook me for my mother, so I used a knife to show him the difference.”  With that she becomes the star of the show, and the muse of Wiktor, who falls madly in love, though as extroverted as she is, he’s equally as introverted.  It’s a match made in heaven, as Zula couldn’t be more captivating, on stage and off, and both are enthralled with what the other can offer them.   The simplistic beauty of their music begins to sound distinctively Slavic, including one of their standard folk numbers, Mazowsze 'Dwa serduszka'The Little Hearts - YouTube (2:39), which quickly transitions into a tribute to Stalin, Zimna Wojna - Dwa serduszka (Two Hearts - Mazowsze ... - YouTube (3:00), where their troupe is little more than a propaganda tool, with party hack Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc) ordering Zula to spy on Wiktor, who barely cares at all, where the winds of change costs Irena her job, as she refuses to capitulate, while Wiktor grows desperately moody and distraught, feeling like a caged animal needing to escape the tightening grip of Stalinism (which banned the playing of jazz music), where they dream of escaping to the creative freedom of the West.  For Zula, on the other hand, Communism is just fine, as she’s never had it so good, traveling to all the Eastern bloc countries as the star of the show, receiving tributes and plenty of adulation.  But when they have a performance in East Berlin in 1952, Wiktor spots an opening and grabs the chance, begging Zula to come with him, where curiously enough before the Wall, you could simply walk across the checkpoint, but it is not to be.

From the dance halls in Poland and Germany to the smoke-filled jazz clubs of Paris and the L’Eclipse nightclub, Wiktor leads a small jazz combo, living in a tiny loft apartment earning a living doing what he loves best, composing music for films, taking refuge in his art, matching the mindset and perspective of the film, which almost makes him forget the “woman of his life” that he left behind, where the chill of loneliness punctuates his every note.  While there are significant time jumps, years later when Zula suddenly arrives out of nowhere to Paris, free as a bird, it reignites a whirlwind relationship, putting Zula onstage as a sultry jazz singer, singing a range of songs that adds to her risqué persona as a femme fatale star wherever she goes, even recording a record together, though she quickly gets bored in Paris, drinking heavily, beautifully expressed in what is the scene of the film which explodes with energy and passion, dancing to Bill Haley & the Comets signature song Rock Around the Clock, Cold War di Pawel Pawlikowski | CLIP 1 - YouTube (1:49), spontaneous like Anna Karina in early Godard films, literally erupting with a volcanic force, allowing her fiery disposition a sensuous release, never more liberated anywhere else in the film.  Impulsive, jealous, and oftentimes malicious, Zula falls into that Western trap of leading a life of decadence and vulgarity, developing an acidic tongue, going toe to toe with anyone that stands in her way, one of whom happens to be Jeanne Balibar in a cameo appearance, a poet of some repute who writes the words to several songs and may be sleeping with her guy, putting her on notice, aggressively giving her a put-down that’s utterly priceless before walking away, preening like a peacock, openly flirting with other men in front of Wiktor, adding to her erotic allure.  French film director Cédric Kahn also has a cameo appearance, playing a film director named Michel, with Wiktor filling him in on Zula’s rise to fame, exaggerating profusely, making her seem more exotic, like a Polish Josephine Baker, which only makes her hate him more, growing annoyed with him.  With Paris losing its luster, it makes it easier spitting him out of her life as she returns to Poland, more than a little homesick.  Of course, Wiktor aches with regret, lost in the misery of a tortured psyche, becoming a shadow of himself, but willing to follow her to the ends of the earth, which means returning to Poland, no matter the consequences, where he pays heavily for his defection, jailed and having to denounce himself for committing a crime.  Despite the overt expressiveness of the many song and dance routines, this is very much an interior film, one that probes the mind of the artist/creator, who becomes a tragic, wounded soul in pursuit of love, closing the film exactly where it began, in a small, dilapidated church on the side of the road, the place where dreams were born. 

Elles

ELLES             C+                  

France  Poland  Germany  (99 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Malgorzata Szumowska

In something of a twist, and a comment on how far we’ve come from the Feminist Movement of the 60’s that called women’s sex scenes in magazines or in the movies exploitive, the primary filmmakers today that are shooting soft-core sex scenes are feminist women, such as Julia Leigh’s Australian Sleeping Beauty (2011) or Hagar Ben-Asher’s Israeli The Slut (Hanotenet) (2011), and now Polish filmmaker Malgoska Szumowska co-writes what feels like the quintessential French film, especially as seen through the emptiness of the middle class in yet another film that exploits female nudity while offering a social comment on the status of women in society.  Juliette Binoche, no less, plays Anne, an intelligent and independent woman who leads a typically bourgeois lifestyle, wealthy and materialistic, but unhappily married with two spoiled children, leading an empty existence in an enormously vacuous Parisian apartment.  As a reporter for Elle magazine, the film is split between her troubled home life, which requires plenty of time-consuming organization and hands on care, and her interviews with two college students that pay for their studies as high priced call girls, Charlotte, Anaïs Demoustier from Belle Épine (2011), a French girl, and Alicja, Joanna Kulig, so good in Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth (2011), a party girl, Polish student, whose graphic sexual exploits are revealed as part of the interviews.  Initially, Anne takes the typically feminist view asking if the women feel exploited or degraded, and is surprised to find neither one feels morally conflicted in any way.  Both seem most pleased at their financial independence, where they are set up in small but luxurious apartments themselves, where the initial surprise is how much money they can make with relatively little effort in terms of working hours.  Anne, on the other hand, leads a busily harried life trying to look after her overly selfish sons, a distant husband, and a rapidly approaching work deadline, where she’s the one that feels exploited and degraded.  Anne tries to get to the bottom of the women’s supposed sense of empowerment, but gets nowhere with either one of these women.       

In fact, this moral ambivalence seems to be at the center of the film, as despite the seemingly frank answers of the women, they provide few clues that can explain their behavior, though it suggests women have more choices in the workplace and can lead highly successful professional careers, but it doesn’t change how women are viewed in society, a perception that remains exclusively male dominated.  Despite the assignment, Anne seems to be exploring her own sense of fulfillment, or lack thereof, through these young girls who have their lives ahead of them.  While men immediately label the women prostitutes or whores, which carries with it negative stereotypes, power trips, and even open hostility, Anne sees them for who they are, two young girls who have no more of a clue how to achieve happiness than anyone else.  Without judging them, she spends most of the interview time simply sharing feelings and experiences, where she develops a closeness and even an affection to both girls without ever crossing the line of professionalism.  Still, even from the audience’s standpoint, there is definitely moral ambiguity about what they do, as even with a positive spin, not every experience is without its personal horrors.  As these women don’t work for an agency, there is no one to protect them should clients get ugly or violent.  The subject of condoms never comes up, except humorously, where the film never really explores this territory, but it does veer from the pleasant, somewhat idyllic picture described by the two girls, casting doubt on their understanding of the profession, as there are most certainly risks involved, just as there are sacrifices and emotional suffering in any marriage, where in the long run, one must weigh the costs.  Stripping and/or prostitution are usually seen as short term investments, while marriage is certainly designed to last forever.  The director beautifully intercuts the sexual acts of the women with Anne’s work at home, looking after her kids, doing laundry, spending time in the kitchen preparing meals, where the picture of work in both cases is depicted as a tedious routine and hardly synonymous with personal pride. 

The women seem to be on a shared wavelength, but not the men, who are completely outside this sphere of rationale except as necessary irritants and sources of money.  Neither woman feels sexually degraded performing unusual requests, as they are asked to do, as they’re being paid extravagant sums.  The weirdness aspect, as far as they’re concerned, is the sexual hang-ups of the men who seem to need strange, kinky outlets for sexual gratification.  While remaining somewhat muddled, the suggestion is that Anne is part of an older generation with moral hang ups, as she sacrificed her own sexual satisfaction long ago for the good of a family, and along with it a certain spontaneity and cheerful nature, leaving behind an embittered person who goes through the routines but feels cheated by the failure of her own marriage, leaving an interminable silence where joy once reigned.  Getting somewhat short shrift here is Anne’s husband (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), who apparently means well, for the most part, but is too busy at work and has little emotional connection to his wife, and too often plays the blame game, where as far as he’s concerned she’s some kind of embarrassing feminist firebrand.  Unfortunately, a large part of the story involves his boss and friends coming to dinner, where Anne is expected to cook dinner and make a favorable impression, which from her perspective is just an extra amount of unneeded pressure, which she attempts to handle gracefully, but when the guests are such nauseatingly pretentious, self-centered bores, people who are just too full of themselves, it’s hard to pay them any mind and not feel used and disgusted.  Instead, in something of a Michael Haneke final long shot, reminiscent of CACHÉ (2005), where the observant clues are everpresent, the family civility is there the next morning for breakfast, but not an ounce of life or joy can be seen, as it’s all suppressed into a tired morning ritual that feels like a recurring nightmare that will play out again and again like the myth of Sisyphus, where everyone feels stuck and manipulated into their various corners where its simply easier to accept defeat in resigned silence.  The dreary and somewhat aloof tone of the film is hardly engaging theatrically and may turn off many viewers as insufficiently shallow, never offering any level of dramatic tension or suspense, and only really works on an intellectual level, as this is really a film built upon images and ideas, shots and counter shots, given a classical music score, constantly questioning the reality of the image.  Of note, the scene where Anne visits an older man in a hospital is Binoche’s real life father.   

The Woman in the Fifth

THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH                B+             

Great Britain  France  Poland  (84 mi)  2011  d:  Pawel Pawlikowski 

Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, still working exclusively in Britain where it’s been seven years since his last film, is a literature and philosophy expert, doing his post graduate work at Oxford on German literature.  Here he adapts an American novel by Douglas Kennedy, called “the most famous American writer you never heard of,” as his work is translated into 18 different languages, but without an American publisher when the book was initially released.  This is easily one of the strangest films you’ll see all year, mixing genres and styles, from film noirs, detective stories, and Val Lewton psychological thrillers of the 30’s and 40’s by offering a never ending series of clues, only to discover in the end you’ve been nabbed in a web of deceit, where you likely took a wrong turn somewhere and may have found yourself at a dead end.  This may be a story within a story, where the connecting tissue dissolves and disappears, finding yourself in a freefall drop into a completely unrecognizable netherworld.  Not sure that describes it, as it’s the story of a lost and possibly destroyed world, but it begins with an American novelist Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) running away from some horrendous mistakes in America, hoping to see his estranged daughter, but thwarted by an order of protection from the mother, falling asleep on a Parisian bus, only to awake at the end of the line, where his money, suitcase and belongings have been stolen.  Rather than report it to the police, he takes a flea bag room alongside other criminals and illegal émigré’s living above a small bar and café, negotiating a price without funds with the seedy Middle Eastern owner with apparent underworld connections, where he agrees to a mysterious off the books job working nights in a locked room in front of a surveillance camera, refusing entrance to anyone except those asking for Mr. Monde, where otherwise he can wile away the time writing to his heart’s content.       

Desperately hoping to reconnect with his daughter, all he can do is watch from afar, as he’s a picture of a distraught man living in exile, where he ends up down and out in the underbelly of Paris where the sins of the past prevent him from finding the world he’s looking for, perhaps re-inventing one instead.  Shot by Ryszard Lenczewski, much of this feels like getting caught up in a dreamlike nightmare, where there are atmospheric mood shots of gothic imagery or dreamy images of a forest immersed in fog with train rails heading off in opposite directions.  Often large bugs are seen scattering around, where always Ricks is portrayed as a desperate man just hoping to survive.  His luck changes when he attends a literary gathering, meeting an older, mysteriously beautiful Hungarian émigré Margit Kadar (Kristin Scott Thomas) on an outside balcony a mere few feet away from the Eiffel Tower, a woman whose extensive knowledge of 7 or 8 languages led to her work as a book translator, and an avid believer in his novel, his only published work.  The two strike up a torrid affair, where she always has an answer for his ongoing anxieties and concerns, suggesting only he has the power to make things better.  Simultaneously, the young Polish bargirl downstairs at the café, Ania (Joanna Kulig), found a Polish translated copy of his novel and has also taken a personal sexual interest in discovering the American in exile, where these two beguiling women both exhibit Greek Siren seductress tendencies, where they tend to portray a fantasy view of the kind of woman he desires. 

His luck is fleeting, however, as without explanation some of his enemies start to disappear, where Margit has reportedly been dead for years, where she must be some kind of apparition, yet for him she exists with all her mysterious and exotic sexual allure, where the harder he tries to pull away, the fiercer her love grows, becoming an obscure and intoxicating expression of pure passion.  Meanwhile he and Ania have these fantasy afternoons together as well, where she lures him into meadows with tall grass, into this luxurious blend of natural elements, yet throughout all these affairs, he is a completely passive participant, where the women are the sexual aggressors, which has a purely fantasy feel to it, where perhaps the story onscreen has become what he is writing in his novel, where perhaps nothing ever happened, as it’s all been imagined.  Seen exclusively through the eyes of Ricks, the pervasive mood of his anxieties and growing paranoia about his disappearing world are evident in every aspect of the film, especially the sexualized elements which are the most intimately personal, where he feels most vulnerable and openly exposed.  His world evolves into a Kafkaesque nightmare where reality is questionable, where his part in it is unknown, as the lines between fact and fiction are blurred and indistinguishable, where it’s hard to tell, even by the finale, where we’re not sure just where we’ve ended up, as there remain multiple possibilities, as if we’ve been absorbed into the writer’s imagination.