New Jersey Stage Issue 51 | Page 17

with their lot if they found them- selves living in the capitalist west. The grass is always green- er on the other side. Perhaps writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski viewed The Lives of Others and came away with the same thought, as his latest film, Cold War, explores exactly such a notion, summed up in a scene where a character suggests to her lover that they move to the other side of a road. “Perhaps the view will be better over there.” The characters in question are Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wik- tor (Tomasz Kot), who over the course of Pawlikowski’s relatively brief film, engage in a turbulent, on-off relationship that spans three decades and both sides of the Iron Curtain. They meet in 1949 Poland, when Zula is chosen to audition at a state school for those pos- sessing musical attributes, a sort of communist ‘Poland’s Got Tal- ent’ where pianist Wiktor acts as a Simon Cowell figure, de- ciding which ‘peasants’ should Watch the trailer for Cold War NJ STAGE - ISSUE 51 INDEX NEXT ARTICLE 17