Love Hurts

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2019)

GRADE: B
THIS FILM IS RECOMMENDED.
IN BRIEF: A beautifully made dysfunctional love story.
JIM'S REVIEW: Director Pawel Pawlikowski used his own parents' love story as his inspiration for his tragic tale, Cold War. Set in 1946 Warsaw, a music teacher becomes enamored of his young talented student. (Call me a prude, but this serious lapse of judgment never becomes an issue and this Humbert and Lolita relationship shrouds this unhealthy affair throughout the film for me.)
The film follows the lives of Wictor and Zula for the next 20+ years and the changing landscape of a world at war. Caught up in the politics and upheaval of Cold War Poland and the rise of Communism, these two self-centered Bohemian souls fall in love while they battle their own personal demons.
The film is superbly acted by Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig as the two leads. Their mercurial relationship is shown episodically and the actors fill in any gaps in their characters' many mood swings and ill-advised decisions which result in many severe consequences along the bumpy road to love. All is gloriously filmed in b& w by Lukasz Zal. The stunning imagery gives the film a somber look and captures the bleakness of the period most effectively.
The screenplay by Janusz Glowacki, Pioti Borkowski, and the director has some lovely dialog in its dramatic storytelling, although some clarity is lost in translation with the film's episodic structure. At times, the jumps in time frames are jarring and in need of fine tuning. Also, the characters, as written, are basically callous and too self-absorbed to really care about. Even the beginnings of their relationship may come into question by some moviegoers due to their noticeable age difference (adult vs. teenager) and ongoing destructive nature which kept them at an emotional distance from this reviewer. (I just could not justify this dance by two sexual predators, even if its powerful ending is filled with pathos and sadness. Much should be credited to the palpable chemistry by the talented Ms. Kulig and Mr. Kot and Mr. Pawlikowski's masterful direction.)
Nevertheless, Cold War is a beautifully realized and well crafted love story that makes a solid case for its two doomed and very dysfunctional lovers.