Popular reviews

• 

  Review by k(arst)en ★★★★½ 8

  Man falling in love with upcoming singer? Gorgeous black and white cinematography? 4:3 aspect ratio? Yup, it’s a 2018 film!

• 

  Review by maria ★★★★★ 8

  every other movie sucks now

• 

  Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★★

  "Let's go to the other side. The view will be better there."

  Forever drawn to each other, incapable of forgetting. Escape was never an option. For them, love is eternal.

• 

  Review by Sean Baker 5

  Saw it on the big screen at the Golden Apricot Film Festival.
  Every shot is masterful. Looking forward to seeing it again.

  Interesting seeing the film with an Armenian/Russian crowd. The first song that Joanna Kulig sings in the film is from the famous 1934 Russian film Moscow Laughs. (This is what I was told - not confirmed) This went over well with the audience being that most recognized it.

• 

  Review by movie enjoyer ★★★ 10

  it's always so frustrating when i'm underwhelmed by a film everyone else loves. pawlikowski is a master and joanna kulig does some beautiful work, but i felt nothing. i think the constant time jumps made for an entirely too incomplete story, which made it difficult for me to become invested in zula and wiktor's doomed romance. the ending would've been affecting if only i cared about anything that came before it

• 

  Review by Lucy ★★★★★ 3

  AFI 2018: film #19 (first seen at CIFF)

  “i’ll be with you till the end of the world”

  mesmerizing. every second of this is so engrossing to me that this viewing felt only minutes long. i haven’t stopped thinking about it since i saw it in chicago, and tonight it only got better. i almost felt weightless afterwards, in some kind of cinematic trance. joanna kulig gives one of my favorite performances of the year, and the camerawork and lighting and MUSIC and everything else only adds to it. this really feels like the whole package to me now, which surprises me as much as anyone else. it snuck up on me

• 

  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½ 6

  A broken love story about broken people in a broken country, Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” is nothing if not true to its title. Barren even in its fleeting moments of joy, and emotionally inaccessible to the extreme, the film is dark enough to make the director’s Oscar-winning “Ida” feel like a frivolous comedy. And yet, as irreparable as these characters might seem, there’s something beautiful about watching them, in less than 90 minutes, try to fix each other over the course of 20 years — to become whole at any cost, long after they’ve forgotten what that really feels like.

  Romance must have been hard to find in post-war Poland. We meet Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) in 1949. A wiry music…

• 

  Review by Lucy ★★★★ 4

  CIFF 2018: film #4

  “i’ve been waiting for you”

  a far more engrossing love story than i was expecting. the kind of sickening love between two people who often can’t stand to be together, but  can’t bare to live apart. there’s no real happy, no real answer to their problem. the fleeting excitement of reuniting time after time is the height of their long shared journey, and the rest is as much a mystery to us as it is to them

  the final act wraps up kind of fast, but besides that, it’s an incredibly solid film. the song she sings and how it develops and changes like a theme song throughout the years really helps keep track of time: like an ever present ghost in the character’s lives, always looming a little too close. and by the time this thing ended, i realized how invested i was, and the credits felt like a punch in the gut

• 

  Review by Lise ★★ 23

  TIFF #18

  What is the point of gorgeous cinematography if the film has no soul?

  Cold War is beautiful to look at for sure. No doubt about it. And good thing too because that was all I *could* do - look at it.

  While others saw black and white in all its glory and a romance for the ages, I saw song and dance numbers intermingled with quick tableaux of two characters I was never given time to care for. As soon as something of interest might happen we jump forward 5 or so years and it starts over: song and dance, scene with the 2 people, another jump forward.

  I will admit that I have a cold. I will…

• 

  Review by benhack ★★★★ 1

  if la la land was an a24 production

• 

  Review by iana ★★★★★ 4

  TALENTED, BRILLIANT, INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, SHOW STOPPING, SPECTACULAR, NEVER THE SAME, TOTALLY UNIQUE, COMPLETELY NOT EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE

  ((i also went on the curzon film podcast to talk about it))

• 

  Review by iana ★★★★★ 3

  A standout scene from Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War involves a simple song and dance. No words are spoken, but nothing needs to be said—the actions speak volumes. Zula (Joanna Kulig) is looking defeated at the bar, embittered by her lover Wiktor (Tomsz Kot) ignoring her. The smooth baritone of Bill Haley suddenly blares through the club’s speakers. Zula quickly gets up and drunkenly dances with feverish energy, moving from man to man, and then on top of the bar, much to the chagrin of Wiktor. Music becomes a source of liberation. If Zula is drifting from the jazz leanings of her lover, is she drifting from him as well? The scene unfolds in a transfixing single take—a fleeting moment of chaotic serenity.

  FULL CANNES REVIEW ON MUCH ADO ABOUT CINEMA