Joanna Kulig & Tomasz Kot star in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War”.   Winner of five Europeon Film Awards.   Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios

Article by Marcus Siu

2018 was a banner year for film writer-director, Pawel Pawlikowski.  Last year, he was awarded “Best Director” prize for his film, “Cold War” when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.  In December, he won two European Film Awards for both his writing and directing, while his film took “Best Picture” honors, with his lead actress Joanna Kulig, taking the “Best Actress” award.

The journey continues this year for Pawlikowski, as he was just recently nominated for “Best Director” at this year’s Academy Awards, which is certainly a rare feat that only few international directors have accomplished for a foreign film.

As Pawlikowski was honored with yet another award (“Outstanding Directors of the Year”) shared with the “other” four Academy Award nominees at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, he discovered his airplane flight from Southern California to the Bay Area was going to be delayed due to inclement weather.  That would have certainly postponed his arrival as he was due to give a Q&A in San Francisco for a private screening for “Cold War” that evening.

Like the instincts of a prominent film director and not afraid of taking any risks, he made his decision swiftly and on the spot. Without hesitation, he rented a car and drove eight hours through California’s rampant storms and pouring rain to make it on time for his Q&A.  Since the Bay Area hadn’t seen that much rain in quite awhile, it was very questionable to the audience that there would be one.  Luckily for the audience, he managed to show up on time and unharmed.

The fierce weather that evening seemed to have symbolized the stormy torrential relationship of the passionate couple in his latest movie, “Cold War”, a tumultuous love story set in Post-war Europe.  The film is loosely based on Pawlikowski’s parents who had passed away in 1989, at the end of the Cold War before the Berlin wall came down.  It is a story about two very different people with very different backgrounds, temperaments and ambitions that spans nearly 20 years from the 1940’s that takes place in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris that were destined to be together.

Joanna Kulig as Zula & Tomasz Kot as Wiktor in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War”. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Ironically, besides their obvious desire for one another,  the only real common link was that they are both accomplished musicians.   Wiktor, (Tomasz Kot), is a extremely talented musician, whose musical passion is mainly with Western music, specifically in jazz, whereas Zula, (Joanna Kulig), is a singer/dancer who eventually becomes the star of the Mazurek, a Polish folk arts ensemble that Wiktor leads as musical director.  Though having no real interest in Polish folk music, Wiktor uses his occupational position as a way to funnel musical talent, such as Zula, who will eventually record a “Western influenced” vocal album in France under his guidance that becomes a artistic success, even though she despises him for it.

Other than that, they are complete opposites of one another.

With a precarious relationship already established surrounded by an ever increasing growing social-political environmental climate, it makes it even more problematic for the couple.  As the Mazurek increasingly becomes a more successful international ensemble, the Stalinist regime takes advantage of their popularity and uses them specifically for communist political propaganda purposes mainly for their own benefit, and in the meantime, bans all of Western music in Poland.

Again, there is no option but for Wiktor to go West to Paris for his “musical desires” and escape for personal freedom, whereas Zulu is just fine living in her village surrounded with communism…or is she?

Joanna Kulig stars as Zula in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War”. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Prior to “Cold War”, Pawlikowski directed “Ida”, which won Poland its first Foreign Film for the Academy Awards, though it didn’t come without some controversy within their country.   In contrast to “Cold War”, “Ida” seems like a perfect companion piece for it.  Both films run less than 90 minutes long, shot in Academy format (1.33 to 1), and is in pristine black and white.  It wasn’t until after “Ida” was completed, that Pawlikowski was able to construct a real narrative into his story rather than just ideas and concepts.  He realized that to write the story for his film, he had to make it “not” about his parents.

Tomasz Kot stars as Wiktor in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War”. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios.

At the Q&A session, Pawlikowski was asked why “Cold War” was shot the way it was.

“Choices can be intuitive…this should be black and white and the right format for the story – One of things, I couldn’t think of any color palette for Poland at that time, it wasn’t very colorful, I wanted to the film to be punchy and dramatic as possible.  Some of the black and white scenes are much more effective than the colors of that time”, Pawlikowski explains.  As far as the Academy Ration, “I like directing around it, it makes you feel more inventive, no restrictions.  I like to do portraits and double portraits; it’s very good for composing in depth”.

It certainly shows in the stunning black and white images from Cinematographer, Lukasz Zal’s camerawork, as he just received his second Oscar nomination for “Cold War”.  His first is for “Ida”.  The details shine throughout both films.

Joanna Kulig & Tomasz Kot star in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios

An amusing question came from the audience from a viewer who asked what it felt like to be nominated this year for “Best Director” for this year’s Academy Awards.

Pawlikowksi reflects from the previous evening…

“Funny, you cannot pretend you don’t care, and you get onto this elevator and it just carries you – what is fun is you end up with a bunch of film people who are completely with you and are great characters.  Yesterday I had a session with five nominated directors (Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Alfonso Cuarón (Roma), Andy McKay (Vice), and Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite))… …such great characters… one of the good things is that you meet extraordinary people.

….  Overall, it’s a good experience…I recommend it.”

The audience roared in laughter.

Pawel Pawlikowski at a recent screening in San Francisco.   Photo by Marcus Siu