Stars: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Foreign Language Film-Poland, Cinematography, Director)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses almost exclusively on two people in post-war Poland: Wiktor (Kot), in charge of creating a state-sponsored musical act, and Zula (Kulig) a beautiful young woman who is on the run from the law & isn't actually a peasant, but is pretending to be one to get into the choir. Wiktor falls in love with Zula, or at least something resembling love, and has her join the choir. Slowly the government starts to force more pro-Stalin propaganda into the act, which Wiktor does with some reluctance, but this also means they'll tour the Eastern Bloc, which gives Wiktor and Zula a chance to escape in Berlin to the West. Zula doesn't show up, and Wiktor goes on to Paris alone. Years later, the two reunite in Paris, both in other relationships but their attraction for each other is undeniable, and they begin to live together in Paris, with her making a record that might launch her career, but she can't handle the stability and recklessly starts drinking and flees back to Poland. Against his better judgment, Wiktor follows her, finding that she's now a drunk & he's quickly arrested. Zula marries a higher-up man in the Soviet government (who had been the guy who initially forced them to include pro-Stalin messaging to begin with), and has a son with him, but cannot get over Wiktor. She visits him, and briefly helps him escape to an abandoned church which was featured in the film's opening scenes. There, it's heavily implied that the two commit suicide together, though we don't see it onscreen, finding death as the only way to escape their reckless cycle.
The film is, as you can imagine, not a comedy. There is little reprieve here from the downward spiral of Zula & Wiktor's lives, as we watch them throw away multiple chances at happiness together because one or both of them cannot handle a world where they aren't fighting, aren't in danger. The film, like Ida, rarely has time for spare moments. Some complained when the movie was initially released that it was too short (a criticsm movies rarely get levied at them), and we needed more time to connect with Wiktor & Zula in order to fully appreciate the film's bleak ending, but I disagree.
The movie's central performances are so terrific, you get so much from their work that isn't even in the script, that the brevity is just taking advantage of the talents of Kot & Kulig. After all, like a fine short story, all we really need to understand about these two is that they are talented, and likely could escape if they truly wanted to do so; they are given ample opportunities throughout the film to flee separately or together. But they are also constantly self-sabotaging, throwing their happiness to the wind because they don't know how to endure it. Kulig, in particular, is breathtaking as a woman who is so beautiful, so carefree, and so lost that it's hard to imagine how she could sit still long enough to do anything, and Kot reflects that by giving into his worst tendencies in order to please her-in order for these two characters to find absolution, it will almost inevitably be through something horrifying. In many ways it recalls the French masterpiece Jules and Jim, with Kulig taking on the role of Jeanne Moreau's Catherine. The movie's jazzy backdrop is complimentary, but its genius is in making us watch these two people collide to an inevitable end, decades of happiness or peace lost because of wrong decisions and passionate mistakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment