X
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 29 m
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 29 m
Summary Cold War is a passionate love story between a man and a woman who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it’s the tale of a couple sepa...
Directed By: Pawel Pawlikowski
Written By: Janusz Glowacki, Piotr Borkowski, Pawel Pawlikowski
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 29 m
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 29 m
Cold War
8.0
Where to Watch
Summary Cold War is a passionate love story between a man and a woman who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it’s the tale of a couple sepa...
Directed By: Pawel Pawlikowski
Written By: Janusz Glowacki, Piotr Borkowski, Pawel Pawlikowski
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
90
100% Positive
45 Reviews
45 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
90
100% Positive
45 Reviews
45 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
We can see Cold War as a look back on recent history, not through the lens of realism, but as a Hollywood fantasy, a kind of romantic protest against a political nightmare.
Pawlikowski is in complete control of the form, but this is no austere piece of work — he even finds time for a few good jokes. Accessible, humane and compassionate: what a treat this is.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 189 User Ratings
8.0
81% Positive
153 Ratings
153 Ratings
16% Mixed
31 Ratings
31 Ratings
3% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 189 User Ratings
8.0
81% Positive
153 Ratings
153 Ratings
16% Mixed
31 Ratings
31 Ratings
3% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
Two hearts and two pairs of eyes. The compelling story of two lovers separated by an invisible but unbreakable iron wall is one of best proposals of East Europe cinema. Maybe deserved more chance than Roma.
Report
¿Beso? Un truco encantado para dejar de hablar cuando las palabras se tornan superfluas. Frase pronunciada por la actriz Ingrid Bergman es básicamente la esencia de esta historia, en donde la belleza de cada cuadro dice mucho más que el dialogo.
El director polaco Pawel Pawlikowski que había mostrado su maestría con Ida (2013), regresa trayendo un romance imposible que tiene de telón de fondo la guerra fría, Pawlikowski cuenta una apasionado romance imposible entre dos personas de diferentes orígenes y temperamentos. Desde la primera escena de esta cinta el espectador queda hipnotizado por la belleza de la imagen en blanco y negro que resalta y contrasta momento de fuerte sentimentalismo sobrio y elegante, que desespera en momentos, que se acompaña perfectamente con la música seleccionada, que parece haber sido creada especialmente para la película.
La película comienza a fines de los 40, vemos una recreación fiel de las distintas épocas por las que la película pasa, mostrando por medio de la música el paso del tiempo. La historia va avanzando, vemos reconciliaciones y reencuentros, siempre hermosos, pero en el fondo sabemos que no durara, nos volvemos participes de la desesperación de dos personas profundamente enamoradas que por los obligaciones laborales y los problemas que se vivían en la época no logran consolidar su romance. Joanna Kulig, ofrece una interpretación desgarradora y hermosa, haciendo un tributo a las mujeres de las películas clásicas de la época.
Report
Pawlikowski, who doesn’t waste a shot (nor compose one that isn’t a work of art on its lonesome), creates a gripping present tense from the clarity and efficiency of his storytelling: No matter how often he lurches us forward in time, we remain locked into the emotional sphere of his characters.
Cold War, Pawel Pawlikowski's latest film, is bittersweet and unbearably lovely, a sad ballad of two lovers who can't stand to stay apart but also sometimes can't stand each other either.
What struck home the most forcefully for me in Cold War is its depiction, insidious and unrelenting, of how artists under communism suffered for their art. At its best, the film is like a bulletin from a benighted world.
Cold War features a few too many ellipses and occasionally substitutes operatic tragedy for credible motivations. This results in a film that, although breathtaking to watch and emotionally wrenching, is strangely unsatisfying.
Form and content seem oddly divorced, but music – the Polish folk tunes, communist-propaganda anthems and Parisian torch songs – sets the mood and saves the day.
Against the backdrop of the cold war of the 1950s in Poland, two people of different social backgrounds and temperaments begin a stormy and passionate love story.
The film is at times a great film, at times instead a mere exercise in style by the director Pawlikowski. The cinematography is beautiful but the choice of the 1: 37: 1 format is very pimp and the editing of the films does not completely convince me. The film runs for less than 90 minutes but the slowness and boredom are at times so disarming that it seems to last an eternity.
Report
The film has many problems but I will deal with just one. When the story depends almost entirely on the viewer's appreciation of a romantic love relationship between the two principal characters, then the key challenge for the writer and director (in this case the same person) is to find a way to convey the emotional content of that relationship to the viewer so that we may in some way connect and care – in the visuals, in the dialogue, in the music, whatever. In this, Pawlikowski has failed totally. The relationship depicted is opaque and impenetrable, occasionally capricious, often tedious, and always without the viewer caring one whit what might follow. And no amount of B&W, 4:3 arty cinematography or a 'powerful' soundtrack or 'inspired' acting can fix that flaw. I suspect Pawlikowski came to realise too late that he had no feel for the relationship (apparently it was based on his parents, which tells me all I need to know about the childish depiction of adult life) and so he was forced to construct an artful deceit to cover up his lack of insight. As a result, a movie that runs only 88 minutes was a chore to watch and entirely forgettable.
Report
Production Company
Opus Film,
Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej,
MK2 Films,
Film4,
BFI Film Fund,
Protagonist Pictures,
Apocalypso Pictures,
MK2 Productions,
Eurimages,
Arte France Cinéma,
Canal+ Polska,
Kino Swiat,
EC1 Lódz - Miasto Kultury,
Maziowiecki Fundusz Filmowy,
Slaski Fundusz Filmowy,
Podkarpacki Fundusz Filmowy,
ARTE,
L'Aide aux Cinémas du Monde,
Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC),
Cinestaan Film Company,
City of Lodz,
City of Warsaw,
MEDIA Programme of the European Union,
Mazovia Region,
Mazovia Warsaw Film Fund,
Silesia Film
Release Date Dec 21, 2018
Duration 1 h 29 m
Rating R
Tagline Love has no borders.
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 3 Nominations
Polish Film Awards
• 7 Wins & 12 Nominations
East-West: Golden Arch International Film Awards
• 4 Wins & 9 Nominations
