By Alex Gehrlein ’19

Pawel Pawlikowski’s film is a very quick slow burn. It has all the hallmarks of a very slow, steady, simmering drama, but is packed into an unusually low runtime of only 89 minutes. This necessitates a very interesting style wherein every moment is essential to telling the story at its bare minimum, but is delivered through very minimal action. It’s told not in broad strokes, but little details that add up to an impressive whole.

Set primarily in Poland during World War II, Cold War follows the turbulent romance of Wicktor and Zula, a composer and performer working for the same theater company. Encompassing fifteen years of their involvement together, the film jumps from year to year without notice, giving us the most compact possible way to tell this story. The two leads are fantastic, with a magnetically charming performance from Joanna Kulig, and a cooly subdued turn from Tomasz Kot. Both express the characters’ emotions in very different ways, but seem to fit together perfectly. Without their chemistry, the film could easily fumble from lacking support.

The strangest, most touching detail of the film is that the story is based around Pawlikowski’s parents’ real life relationship. Certain events make it clear that the story is not a direct account, but the lead characters’ names and temperaments seem to have been pulled directly from the director’s life. This lends a very personal tone to the film, which only helps to bring us in on the romance.

The film is interesting in that it does so much within its runtime that it must be uniquely purposeful with its storytelling. It simply doesn’t give itself the time to go that far in depth, so personal touches and onscreen charisma go a long way in communicating what isn’t given time to develop of its own course.

My biggest problem with the film is that I feel it could have been served well by another fifteen to twenty minutes to get to know these characters. It is impressive how well their personalities are defined in the time we’re given with them, but more time could only help to bring us in closer. Certain gaps in the timeline left me wanting some sort of bridge to cross them, but Pawlikowski seems hellbent on fast tracking the film to its admittedly impactful conclusion. It should be taken as both a criticism and a complement to say that this film left me wanting to know so much more about its characters.

8.5/10

By Alex Gehrlein ’19

I admittedly don’t know all that much about the first world war. I remember little more than trenches and Franz Ferdinand from my history classes, and haven’t watched much beyond All Quiet On The Western Front. The main reason I even saw this film was out of love for Peter Jackson, and a need to see something new from him that didn’t have the name Tolkien attached. We all know Jackson from Lord of The Rings, and hardcore horror buffs might even appreciate the madcap comedy of Dead Alive or Bad Taste. His career has taken him over every terrain of filmmaking, but the last thing I would have ever thought to call him would be a great documentarian, probably because this is his first documentary, but I am more than happy to call his first effort a roaring success.

The big problem with historical footage is that it feels impersonal. Black and white film was never the best tool for capturing history, and watching the jerky, scratchy, grainy footage of the early 1900’s is a very detached experience. You forget the real people in front of the camera, and see it as more of a document than a looking glass. Jackson’s goal with the film seems to be to bring us in closer to the first world war than ever thought possible using this footage, and he does so with a masterful selection of restored and enhanced clips.

We are lulled into the main action by transitioning from still photos and original black and white footage to the colorized film and then pulled back out. You are taken on a soldier’s journey, and the intensity of color matches that of the real life action.

Unknown faces in the hoards of young men are imprinted with character by the recorded recollections of veterans played in conjunction with them. The varying views of the commentators give a broad portrait of the war, and seem destined to have matched perfectly with the footage they accompany. It is easy to see why this process took four years in total, as the unfathomable number of hours needed to select the right sequence of footage and audio goes above and beyond the difficulty of any standard film production.

Not only is this a great documentary, but it’s a technical marvel. Few movies are able to give such a comprehensive understanding of a particular time or place, especially when so far removed from the events they depict. No material was made especially for this film. No voice over was written. Jackson has told a sweeping epic using literal “found footage” in a way that rivals his best work, and in the purest sense of the word documentary.

9/10