Cold War (2018) – Review

Zula (Joanna Kulig) – front left – with the rest of the troupe.

Along with film, two subjects that interest me very much are history and music. Both of these subjects have fascinated me in my life in general, as well as when they’ve been the subjects of films I’ve liked. Both subjects are placed front and center in Cold War, Pawel Pawlikowski’s follow-up to Ida (my favorite film released in 2014), and if it’s not quite up to the level of that film, it’s still very good.

Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) conducts an orchestra.

Co-written by Pawlikowski and Janusz Glowacki (who died before the film was released), the story starts in 1949 Poland, where Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), a pianist, and Irena (Agata Kulesza), an ethnomusicologist, are traveling the countryside to find a troupe of performers to preserve and stage the folk music of the country. They’re accompanied by Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc), a government official who is nevertheless genuinely moved by what he sees and hears. One of the many performers Wiktor and Irena audition/listen to is Zula (Joanna Kulig), who sings a folk song with Anna (Ania Zagorska), another performer (the song they sing, “Ja Za Woda, Ty Za Woda”, translates as “Beyond the Waters, you and I”), and she immediately captivates Wiktor (when he asks, “What else have you got?”, she replies, “To sing?”). Zula ends up being the star of the show, and she and Wiktor begin a passionate affair, even after she admits she’s there to spy on him. However, Wiktor becomes upset about the Polish government, under instructions from Moscow, ordering the music to be propaganda for the government, so he and Zula plan to meet in Berlin and defect to Paris from there, but Zula never shows. Years later, Wiktor is now living in Paris, making his living as a pianist, when he gets a letter from Zula. They meet in a cafĂ©, and even though he’s living with Juliette (Jeanne Balibar), a poet, and she’s involved with someone else, Wiktor and Zula continue their affair. Wiktor then goes to Yugoslavia when the troupe (which Zula is still in) is performing there, but it turns out the man Zula is involved with is Kaczmarek, who has Wiktor kicked out of the country. A few years later, Zula makes it back to Paris, and she and Wiktor take up again (even though she’s married; he’s broken things off with Juliette but they’re still friends), but they’re miserable there.

Wiktor and Zula in good times.

Pawlikowski based this loosely on the story of his parents – his father was a medic, while his mother was an aspiring ballerina, but they had the same kind of tempestuous, on-and-off again affair Viktor and Zula have here (they had the same names as well). He uses music to provide the subtext of the relationship between the two of them. This is a tricky way to tell the story – Alan Rudolph’s Welcome to L.A. and Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart also tried this approach, and while they were both fascinating to watch, they weren’t quite able to pull it off – but Pawlikowski is able to bring it off. Part of it is how he grounds the material in real-life details, like the Polish folk music group (based on a real group), or the song “Dwa Serduszka” (which translates as “Two Hearts”), an old Polish folk song, that is performed throughout the movie, including as a jazz standard by Zula in Paris. Pawlikowski also pays attention to the atmosphere of each place, as well as the politics of Poland’s Communist government (when Wiktor wants to go back to visit Zula, everyone makes plain to him how bad an idea that is), and how the bohemian atmosphere of Paris, despite being free of oppression, feels oppressive in its own way to Wiktor and Zula (this was also a major plot point in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and works just as well here). Part of it is the way Pawlikowski, as he did in IDA, working again with cinematographer Lukasz Zal, shoots the film in black-and-white and in the old-fashioned aspect ratio of the time period, which not only fits with that time period, but also the setting. More even so than Ida, the black and white photography is also gorgeous, with the white (the Polish landscape) contrasting with the black (the smoky nightclub Wiktor plays in while in Paris) more than any movie since perhaps Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s.

Wiktor and Zula in not-so-good times.

Mostly, however, it’s the music. Pawlikowski uses a number of Polish songs, and not just the two I mentioned above, but he also uses music from elsewhere. In IDA, jazz was the music of choice even though it was considered decadent by the Soviet Union, but as Paris was the major European city that welcomed jazz, it’s played throughout those sequences, and Pawlikowski serves up some good songs to establish mood and the period, from Zula and Wiktor performing together “I Loves You Porgy” (from Porgy & Bess) to the two dancing to Ira Woods’ performance of the great Louis Jordan song “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” to standards like Billie Holiday’s version of “The Man I Love”. Pawlikowski also throws in “Rock Around the Clock”, which Zula dances to in the nightclub at one point while Wiktor looks on, perhaps to show how things were changing. All of this music expresses the feelings Wiktor and Zula have for each other, even if their conflicting personalities get in the way. The music also provides a counterpoint to the elliptical way Pawlikowski films this movie, from the fadeouts to the dialogue (Zula is rumored to have killed her father; when Wiktor asks her about it, she says, “He mistook me for my mother, until my knife showed him the difference”).

Kulig, who also had a small role in Ida as a singer (before that, she was also in Pawlikowski’s previous film The Woman in the Fifth, which I think is his weakest film to date), completely lights up the screen whenever she appears, and she also sings well. Kot, who Danny Boyle wanted to cast in the upcoming James Bond movie (he left the project when the studio overruled him on that), has the grungy cool of a jazz pianist, but he’s also able to suggest deeper feelings underneath, especially when he and Zula first meet again in Paris and he wants to know why she never showed up (she argues she wasn’t “good enough”). Like IDA, COLD WAR runs less than 90 minutes, and I can understand those who wish it had run longer and been more developed, but what it does show us is a feast for the eyes and the ears.

Reel 70: Love During Wartime

Roughly two-thirds of this show’s life ago, we did an episode titled “Life During Wartime“, in which the war wasn’t always neatly spelled out.

In today’s episode, it’s Love During Wartime, and again the war isn’t quite so obvious, except that it’s referring specifically to the Cold War. We’re looking at a pair of films that each deal with a couple and how they respond to Soviet oppression. In both cases, it’s rather early in that oppression, but they’re still set many years apart.

In Part One we’ll be looking at 1988’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, directed and co-written by Philip Kaufman. Daniel Day-Lewis is a man who falls in love with a woman and eventually finds it in himself to change, however slowly, for her benefit. It’s a long, convoluted story that will run you through all of your emotions, no matter how cold-hearted you are.

Part Two is a more recent film. From 2018, it’s Cold War, a film about star-crossed lovers who seem to find themselves on the opposite sides of many  different lines throughout their relationship, including the Iron Curtain itself. They’re together, then they’re separated, but they manage to find their way back together.  Was it worth it for them? We’ll leave it to you to decide that part.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

Episodes 71-73 will be all about spycraft, but for the first one we’re going to keep it light. We’ll start with 1979’s The In-Laws, starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.  From there we go to 1984 and Top Secret!, a spy spoof that stars Val Kilmer as an Elvis-like musician who is recruited to perform in Europe and finds himself mixed up in espionage.  Join us, won’t you?

Shoplifters: A Review

Episode 59 has finally dropped, and here’s what I wrote about our first movie from that episode, Shoplifters, when I wrote about my favorite movies released in the U.S. in 2018.

Throughout his career, Hirokazu Kore-eda has specialized in telling humanistic dramas, as well as movies inspired by true stories – not the earth-shattering or world-shaking stories made into movies like, say, The Post, but what might be called human interest stories. My favorite film of his to date, Shoplifters, which won the Palme D’Or in 2018, combines both of those strands (though not based on any particular story, it is based on stories Kore-eda read about poverty and shoplifting).

Set in Tokyo, the film follows a poor family living in a run-down apartment; Osamu (Lily Franky), an out-of-work day laborer (he twisted his ankle), his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), who works for a laundry service, Nobuyo’s sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), who works as a stripper, and Shota (Kairi Jo), Osamu and Nobuyo’s son, or so he appears to be at first. They live with the apartment owner, Hatsue (Kirin Kiki), and they live off her pension and the food and other supplies Osamu and Shota shoplift from grocery stores. One night, as Osamu and Shota are walking home, they spot a little girl named Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), who seems to come from a family that abuses and neglects her. Osamu takes her in, and while Shota’s jealous at first of the attention Yuri gets, when Yuri, whose name is changed to Rin, joins in on the family’s shoplifting, he changes his mind, especially when he and the rest of the family learn Rin’s family never reported her missing. However, after one incident involving Shota, things start to unravel.

Kore-eda’s method is to let things develop at their own pace, without trying to force any melodrama on the proceedings. Sometimes, that low-key approach simply becomes too flat (as I felt the Kore-eda film most similar to this, 2004’s Nobody Knows, about a group of children abandoned by their mother, was).* However, with the plot twists Kore-eda gives us as the movie goes on, this low-key approach works. Kore-eda (who also edited the film), cinematographer Ryuto Kondo, and production designer Keiko Mitsumatsu show us the details of how this makeshift family lives, without rubbing our noses in it. Kore-eda also shows us how this family loves and takes care of each other, as well as Yuri, even as we later learn the truth about all of them. As with other of his films, Kore-eda is also making a critique of the Japanese government – how I can’t really get into without giving things away – but again, he does so in a low-key manner, so it never feels didactic. Instead, he involves us emotionally with the characters, without every tugging directly on our heartstrings. It helps the cast is all very good (Kiki, a Kore-eda regular, died a couple of months before the film was released in the U.S.). As more people fall into poverty, it becomes important for art to depict them in an honest way, and Shoplifters fits the bill.

*-At the time I wrote this, that’s how I felt about Nobody Knows. However, after rewatching the movie, I like it a lot more, and it’s up there with my favorite Kore-eda movies (along with After Life, Still Walking, Our Little Sister, Shoplifters, and Broker).

Reel 59: TANSTAAFL

For the record: Sean kinda hates this title, but there was nothing we workshopped that was any better, so.

For the uninitiated, “TANSTAAFL” is an acronym meaning “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” It derives from Robert Heinlein’s novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It’s one of my favorites of his, although there are a couple of things in it that don’t make a ton of sense. But if you’re along for the ride, you don’t really mind so much. Also, if you’ve read the book, check out the audiobook. The reader puts a neat spin on it that gave me a whole new perspective.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Reel 59.

In this episode we look at a couple of unconventional families who are caught up in the dark side of capitalism. We start with 2018’s Shoplifters, written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. It’s a Japanese film about a family that succeeds, largely through various forms of deception. And it works—until it doesn’t. There are some moments of high drama, others with comedy, and a couple of really  sweet scenes involving these folks just spending time together and exploring their relationships with one another.

In Part Two we jump to Korea and 2019’s Parasite, directed and co-written by Bong Joon Ho. It’s a comedy throughout until, again, everything goes wrong and the tone changes. But, like Shoplifters (and, for that matter, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), you’re already so enthralled by the story that you’re going to want to ride it out. Parasite is so good that it won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. And my personal opinion is that these awards will stand up to scrutiny in later years (looking at you, Rocky, Crash and Forrest Gump).

Reel 51: Alfonso Cuaron’s Mexico

It’s not going out on a limb to say that Alfonso CuarĂłn has directed a wide variety of films. From the sex comedy SĂłlo con tu pareja to the near-future Children of Men (which we discuss in Episode 11), to the pure fantasy of the third film in the Harry Potter series, to the films we discuss in this episode, it’s pretty much impossible to point to a specific genre of film, or even a specific quirk of his films that allow you to say “And that’s what makes it a CuarĂłn film.” He just can’t be pinned down.

And yet, so much of what he does is just so good, it kind of makes you a little crazy. But it also means that when he makes these epic-length films, you don’t mind it, because you want to stay in that world as long as possible.

So Sean and Claude start with Y Tu Mama Tambien, which genre-wise lands somewhere between sex comedy and coming-of-age film. In this 2001 film, two teenagers take a road trip to a nearly-fictional beach (if you’ve seen the film, you understand what’s meant by that) with an older, attractive, married woman. It’s all kinds of fun and all kinds of horny, and what ultimately happens is guaranteed to be surprising in some areas and not at all surprising in others.

From there we jump to 2018 and a film called Roma, shot largely on location in Mexico City. It’s a period piece that centers on perhaps one of the most mundane characters in the film, and yet you can’t help but love her, and the people around her. Most of them, anyway.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

We continue journeying south, clear down to South America, for a couple of films with very different storylines and viewpoints. We’ll begin with State of Siege, from 1972 and directed by Costa-Gavras. It’s a story about political upheaval in a largely-unnamed country. From there we move on to The Secret in Their Eyes, the story of an ongoing murder mystery that’s partly told in flashback. You should definitely see this film before listening to the episode, because the ending isn’t a big twist, but it will definitely shock you.

Reel 49: Female Thieves

First and foremost, Sean and Claude are celebrating their adjacent birthdays this week. That’s something that neither knew about the other until after they’d started on this project. So, Happy Birthdays to us!

Second, Claude really wanted to call this episode “Girls Kicking Ass,” but he chickened out and didn’t petition Sean to change it. So, “Female Thieves” it was and “Female Thieves” it remained. (Yes, we have used a few of his episode titles. Sean isn’t a total despot about these things.)

But the fact is, the girls do kick ass in these two films, and they don’t even bother taking names, ’cause that’s just going to slow them down in their pursuit of whatever they’re pursuing.

And while both of these films involve women and their capers, it’s interesting to see that they have vastly different approaches to them, based on circumstance and motivation.

To that end, we begin with 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It’s directed by Ang Lee and stars Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh. This is a highly-stylized Wuxia film whose action sequences are simultaneously tough to believe and breathtakingly beautiful.

In Part Two we jump to 2018 and a film called Widows, directed by Steve McQueen. In this film, Viola Davis leads a group of women to steal $5 million, a big chunk of which is needed to pay off a local crime boss. It’s loosely based on a British TV series.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

In Episode 50(!), we look at a pair of films that somehow managed to inspire television shows, although you may not realize it at first. We’ll start with 1953’s Stalag 17, then move on to 1992 and a film called Singles. Based solely on the plotlines you may be able to guess which series they inspired.  However, you’re going to have a tough time drawing the line from A to B regarding plot points and characters.

Reel 43: Dublin Calling

It’s the Lost Episode! Sean and I went back and re-recorded this episode. Fortunately I store hardcopies of the film synopses, and Sean takes a ton of notes, and I do my usual blundering in between, and I’m pretty positive that we covered literally everything that we covered the first time around, with the exception of something I actually added that wasn’t there previously (it’s something I said at the end of the first segment).

This time, we’re looking at a pair of musicals set in the city of Dublin, Ireland. Our first film is 1991’s The Commitments, directed by Alan Parker. It’s the story of a group that aspires to become a soul band in the 1960s Stax/Atlantic tradition. That said, I don’t think it’s 100% clear that the film is set any earlier than the 1980s. No matter, though: it’s a fun movie, especially if you’re fond of that F-bomb. (Heh.)

From there we move forward to 2007, and a film called Once, written and directed by John Carney. It’s the story of a couple of musicians who find each other. And they discover that they’re yearning for something more than what they have in their lives. Whether or not that’s each other is something that’s explored during the film. You’ll find yourself rooting for them as a couple. Never mind that there are some perfectly good reasons not to do that.

While both films have the commonality of being set in Dublin, there’s another thing about them that many fans have suggested. We discuss it briefly in the second half of the show, and while it’s plausible, there’s really nothing anywhere to back it up. But it’s a truly fun coincidence, assuming it is one.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

In our next episode, we look at two musical films that are period pieces. Specifically, they take place shortly before a seismic shift in the music scene. First, from 2007 is the criminally-underrated Honeydripper,  written and directed by John Sayles, and from there we move on to 2014’s Inside Llewyn Davis, written and directed by the Coen Brothers.