Warm Hearts in Cold Times

Rating: 9/10 (16 October 2018)

This love story is set in the years shortly after the end of the Second World War when Poland, having struggled to free itself from Nazi tyranny, then finds itself subjected to Stalinist occupation. This cruel, repressive situation provides the setting in which the lovers struggle to build their futures - the key to understanding the drama.
A middle-aged musician, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), under the direction of Stalinist quislings, is on a mission to find the talent for the creation of a Polish folk ensemble, destined for use as a propaganda tool by the Soviets.In the course of his search, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful young singer, Zula (Joanna Kulig). Aware of the growing constraints being placed upon him and his artistic integrity by the sickly officialdom of the State, he plans to escape to Berlin, and asks her to go with him. She agrees. But Wiktor soon discovers that such a move is more than she feels can cope with, and she remains in Poland.
Wiktor moves on to Paris where he becomes involved in the jazz scene and with another woman. A few years later, during a tour by the folk ensemble to European cities, Wiktor and Zula meet again. She is now married to one of the odious Polish State officials, an act of convenience/necessity rather than love, just as Wiktor's new relationship is. They try to go their separate ways, but their initial passionate attraction returns and they rekindle their affair . . . with tragic consequences.
The yearning for the Homeland is strong and the lovers return to Poland. Their fraught relationship, with its dream of personal and artistic fulfilment and freedom, flickers and flares, warms and burns until at last, the lovers confront the impossibility of their dream ever being realised under the stifling presence of the Stalinist regime.Wearied by existing in such a world, they decide to take their own lives.
This superb movie, wonderfully shot in monochrome in a boxy frame, combines utterly convincing acting by the leads with evocative and brilliantly performed music, creating a chillingly bleak mood. Sentimentality is absent, the lovers being portrayed as hardened and flawed as well as tender and torn. There is no hint of melodrama, more of weary inevitability. The final scene is handled with such tragic delicacy that I, for one, was left speechless with grief as I left the movie theatre.
A brilliant tour de force with an emotional punch that stays with you long after the movie is over.
(Viewed at HOME Arts Centre, Cinema 1, Manchester, UK 9 September 2018)