Cold War is a clever title. Yes, it clearly refers to a time period. Pawel Pawlikowski’s love story begins in Poland in the aftermath of World War II. However, it could also refer to the chilly relationship at its center. Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) are musicians. They meet in 1949. Musical director Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is a pianist holding auditions for a traditional folk song and dance troupe. Music plays an important part in the lives of these entertainers and it often underscores the striking visuals. Zula isn’t the best singer, but Wiktor is infatuated by the sultry blonde. He hires her. The impropriety of an older teacher lusting after his young student is a bit unsettling at first. Those feelings are somewhat assuaged later when we learn that Zula isn’t the innocent that she appears to be either. She’s not to be toyed with. There’s a rumor that she killed her father.
This isn’t a sentimentalized portrait but rather a tempestuous affair highlighted by bitter disagreements. Neither character is what they seem. As their connection deepens, their show becomes a hit and the state appropriates their production for propagandistic purposes with massive posters of Stalin behind them. Unhappy with the turn of events, Wiktor and Zula make a pact to flee and reunite in West Berlin. Then she inexplicably stands him up. They will meet again but it’s years later. Incredibly over an efficient 85 minutes, the picture chronicles 15 years of a relationship that traverses across Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia, and Paris.
This tale of star crossed lovers without children is fictionalized but director Pawel Pawlikowski’s based the pair on his own late parents. His work has received many accolades. His last feature, Ida, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2015. So too has Cold War garnered Oscar nominations in 2019 — 3 to be exact: Foreign Language Film, Directing, and Cinematography. In an interesting coincidence, it will compete against Alfonso Cuarón’s even more heavily nominated Roma, another black and white movie inspired by the director’s own life.
Cold War is indeed highlighted by stunning black and white camera work by Lukasz Zal. Curiously the format of the presentation is in a boxy 4:3 ratio. I must assume that widescreen would have only enhanced the visuals. Perhaps this decision was to recall the past and mimic the way Hollywood movies looked before 1953. Despite the truncated image, it still looks enchanting. Yet the rapport between these two enigmatic people is not. Indeed this just might be the bleakest romance ever given a luminous facade by way of gorgeous black and white photography. This is the profile of a stormy love. The justification for the desire that keeps them returning to each other is wholly unexplained. To make matters more bewildering, the motivations for certain behaviors is frustratingly vague. For example, please witness a dreamy moment where the couple is lying together in a sunny meadow showing sweetness. Now during that very same scene, Zula suddenly admits to an act of betrayal. Here and elsewhere, I felt nothing but apathy for these two. Yes, the cinematography is absolutely captivating. The on-again, off-again love story at the heart of the drama? Eh not so much.
1-24-19
I respect Nicole Kidman as an accomplished thespian. I really do. As such, I hold the actress in high regard. Destroyer is a film highlighted by the transformation of its star. The tall, willowy blonde ditches her signature long tresses for a wispy dirty brown bob with bangs. Not only does her hair look filthy but her normally fair unblemished skin is wrinkled and pockmarked. Set in modern-day Los Angeles, Kidman plays Erin Bell, a detective who is on the hunt for the members of a burglary ring. When she receives a $100 bill stained from a dye pack, she determines it’s from a bank robbery committed by a California syndicate many years prior. Erin’s gritty appearance tells us she’s had a rough past. Via flashbacks, we learn that she and her former partner Chris (Sebastian Stan) had previously infiltrated this organization as undercover officers. Predictably, these two shared a romantic relationship as well. At any rate, now it appears the criminals are active again. Based on an original script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, the narrative is the saga of a woman with a score to settle.
Pssst….I’m going to let you in on a little secret that few people realized in 2018. Game Night was one of the funniest (and best) movies of the year. It’s hard for broad farce to be taken seriously. I mean its raison d’être is to make you laugh by being silly. But this production is so inventively funny and wonderfully acted that it fitfully entertains to the very end. Last year wasn’t good for R-rated comedies.We got Girls Trip sure but then we also got Snatched, Baywatch, Rough Night, and The House. Into that wake came this picture. It got released without much fanfare in February of 2018 – one week after Black Panther – the biggest hit of the entire year. Game Night got lost in the shuffle.
Blindspotting is a carefully crafted meditation on moral concerns, that is, what it means to be human and exist in this world. On the surface it’s a consideration on the gentrification of the Bay Area — a condemnation on the way housing costs have skyrocketed. The reason for this has a lot to do with the success of tech companies that have lured young wealthy transplants from places like Seattle and Portland. The influx has had a considerable effect on life in Northern California. But it’s so much more than that. In a larger perspective, it’s a dissertation on race and class. Yet the milieu is not didactic. Blindspotting loves the Bay Area and everything that makes it one of the most diverse intersections of cultures in the world.
Mary Poppins Returns answers the question: Is it still possible for a movie of today to promote sweetness and joy with unadulterated sincerity? The response is a resounding yes. This is an enterprise without guile or sarcasm. It simply exists as a bit of wholesome entertainment, exactly as the 1964 version did. 54 years may separate these two films, but you’d never know it from this production. The time is 1935 Depression-era London. Jane (Emily Mortimer ) and Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw), the children from the original, are now adults. Michael is a widower with three young children of his own: John (Nathanael Saleh) Annabel (Pixie Davies) and adorable star-in-the-making Georgie (Joel Dawson). Since his wife’s death, Michael has fallen behind on the mortgage payments. He has been informed by the president of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank (Colin Firth) that he has until Friday to pay off the entire loan, or he will lose the house. Jane and Michael remember their father had given them shares in the bank which would provide enough money to repay the debt. The certificate would be the proof. It has disappeared. If only they knew where it was.
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