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
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