Movies: Cold War

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - It`s Oscar season again. The Polish movie "Cold War" collected 3 Oscar nominations: Best Foreign Language film, Pawel Pawlikowski for Best Director, and Lucasz Zal for Best Cinematography (imdb).

I think the film would deserve these awards. It has an interesting plot and it is a feast for the eyes, even though it is shot in black and white. The story runs from1949 through the mid 1960s when there was a sharp conflict between the communist East and the free West. The movie focuses on a Polish musical director who fells in love with a young singer. The plot starts in communist Poland and moves later to other countries (this is a spoiler free blog).

"Cold War" is about love, romance & obsession, but the film is also a historical document. We learn a bit about the political system in Soviet occupied Poland and the ideological pressures the people there had to cope with - a system Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren  & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to import to the  US. The audience also gets an impression about the sharp contrast between the suppressed & bleak live in the communist system, which was evolving into a gigantic prison, and the freedom people in the West experienced. The title "Cold War" captures these differences perfectly.

I was impressed how the makers reincarnated the looks of the early 50s and how they turned the wintry, dark and poor sights of 1950s Poland into beautiful & esthetical shots.

Go and watch it!