#that man. and also the ending is very abrupt... couldve worked but one of the characters stories just isnt resolved and she isnt in

[ascendandt]

i read a play for my drama class and i payed money for it. and i dont wanna say this but it wouldve been good if the playwright went off of social media while writing it and also maybe talked to some 12 year olds. the big dramatic speeches read to me like bad activist poetry on tumblr circa 2018.

[curly-q-reviews]

ROAD TO THE OSCAR MAYER WIENER AWARDS 2K19

Cold War (original title Zimna wojna), 2018 (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)

Nominated for: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography

TW SUICIDE MENTION

SPOILER WARNING IM GONNA GIVE AWAY THE ENDING IN THIS REVIEW DONT READ THIS SHIT IF U WANNA WATCH THIS MOVIE OK BYE LOVE U

well shit the oscars is only a week away!!!  and ive only seen like half of the movies i wanted to see!!!  how does this keep happening to me!!!!!!!!!!!

ok well no use crying over spilled milk im just gonna have to go on a massive movie-watching spree this week and try and consume as many films as possible, and in the meantime lets talk about the movie i saw last night.  this is probably the first year ive seen more than one movie in the foreign language film oscar category, mainly just because the foreign language films are typically harder to find unless a local movie theater happens to be playing them as part of an oscars season special event or something.  but now that two of our nominees this year have american distributors it makes watching them a lot easier. 

going into Cold War i had absolutely no idea what it was about except that its set in Poland during the, well, Cold War.  the trailers for this movie didnt really reveal much about the plot or characters, which honestly i kinda prefer with trailers.  sometimes they just give away waaaayyy too much and then whats the point of going to see the movie??  i did know beforehand that its a romance so i at least had that expectation.

and well yeah its a romance all right!!  its a very romeo and juliet star-crossed lovers kinda situation where a student who gets accepted into a state-run polish music academy becomes close with one of the instructors and they fall in love, however life circumstances keep pulling them away from each other over and over again.  the movie spans over a timeline of about a decade and a half, and in this time the two of them find other lovers, get married, travel from country to country, but always end up managing to find each other before theyre separated again by circumstances that usually involve the polish communist state.  so basically communism is a total cock block. 

acting in this movie is overall very solid with not really a weak link in the bunch, except for maybe tomasz kot who played wiktor cause he just felt a lil stiff to me.  however joanna kulig steals the fuckin show for me as zula, shes utterly captivating on screen and really takes advantage of all of the close-up shots of her face throughout this film.  it also helps that shes given a fantastic character to play in zula, shes a spitfire and strong-willed and will not take any mans bullshit but near the end of the film you do get to see her struggle as well.  the shit she has to put up with gets very harrowing at times and u do feel for her

and wiktor goes through his fair share of shitty situations as well, i mean damn he ends up in jail when he goes back to poland for zula and they mangle his hands so badly he’ll never be able to play piano again which was his livelihood.  its pretty tragic how these two people are just like little puppets for the communist state to toss around and play with to their hearts content until theyre both almost destroyed.  and really the whole underlying backdrop of communist poland is really what elevates this story from being just another romeo and juliet clone to something a little more profound. 

ill come back to the story in a bit cause there are a few things i took issue with but i wanna take a moment to praise the music in this film cause holy SHIT its so good.  im honestly really surprised it didnt get any music-related noms cause the music was probably my favorite part of Cold War.  the beginning is full of polish folk music with a full womens choir that sounds just delightful, and then we transition into classic jazz when our lovers end up in paris together in the early 1950′s, and then some american classic rock n’ roll music is thrown into the mix in a few scenes, and then at the end we have a performace thats like a weird polish version of mariachi music??  such a wide and complex musical palette that ebbs and flows with the story, and we also get to see performers doing their thing which is just the icing on the cake. 

so the movie sounds fantastic, and i mean i gotta say it looks fantastic too!  like Roma, Cold War is shot in black and white, which definitely fits the time period its set in and fits especially well with the jazz scenes.  we get a lot of close-up shots of peoples faces, but theyre balanced out well with wide shots that tend to put the focal points in the bottom third of the screen which i thought was an interesting touch.  gave it a very art house feel.  from what i could tell there were mostly still shots except for a few dance scenes, which kept the movie very grounded and kinda added a sense of realism.

so i think thats all the good shit i have to say and i wanna touch on the ending for the last part of this review, cause to be frank, this movie ended so abruptly it gave me whiplash.  i was going into this film expecting it to be like 2 hours long but the run time clocks in at just under an hour and thirty minutes.  usually this isnt a bad thing at all especially for quieter movies like this that take their time, but in this case it couldve used AT LEAST another ten to twenty minutes.  so wiktor is let out of prison early because his commie friend pulled some strings (probably due to zulas insistence) and we find out that zula has married this commie state official and had a kid with him.  and she now works as a performer (probably working for the state like she did when she was with the music academy) singing weird polish mariachi music.  shes clearly drunk off her ass when she sees that wiktor is out, runs to the bathroom to puke, and then he finds her in there and they decide to run away together again.  but its implied that this time its more of an uuhhh permanent escape.  like, PERMANENT permanent.  like no-longer-living permanent.  and this is the point of the movie where im like “oh god really theyre gonna keep THIS part of the romeo and juliet story they really think thats a good idea”

and then the next scene we see them going to an abandoned run-down church that was shown in the beginning of the movie, and they both have what looks like a shit ton of pills out in front of them.  they say wedding vows, then each take half of the giant pile of pills, and then go to watch the sunset.  and then thats where the movie ends.  it just like cuts to credits and thats it. 

idk man it just doesnt have the amount of emotional gravitas that i feel like a scene like that should have.  and it escalates so quickly too, like one minute theyre in a bathroom and the next theyre on a bus and the next theyre at the church with the pills in front of them.  its hard to explain how abrupt it all felt watching it, u have to see it for urself to get what i mean.  the pacing was just really off in the last third of this film, and with the severity of the act theyre committing u’d think the director would wanna spend more time on it.

so other than that i’d say if u like foreign films and good period pieces this is one to check out, i’d give it like a 7/10.  if anything go see it just to listen to the music cause good god its so gorgeous im gettin my hands on this soundtrack. 

OK Y’ALL i got lots of reviewing to do in the next few days so u’ll be seeing a log of long-ass posts from me soon!  i think The Favorite is on amazon video now so ill watch that for sure sometime this week, and then god knows what else i’ll watch i’ll just have to play it by ear.  have a relaxing fun and fresh sunday y’all try not to let the idea of having to go to school/work tomorrow fill u with too much existential dread  ;)