...this is about the dark heart of Poland itself. The wounded love at its centre surfaces from the depths of cynicism, exhaustion and state-sponsored submission and fear.
Pawlikowski leaves the cliched wartime romance at the door, strips away the melodrama, and makes every interaction between Zula and Wiktor carry greater weight than other films of the genre.
An aching film on such exquisite pains of impossible love, Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” concurrently swells your heart and breaks it, just like the sore memory of a lover that drifted away from your life...
Filmen bader i smukke billeder. Vinterlandskaber, religiøs ikonografi og panoreringer langs Seine-bredden, som også Tarkovskij og Dreyer sikkert havde nikket anerkendende til.