Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Screenplay: Pawel Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Borkowski
Starring: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Cedric Kahn, Jeanne Balibar
Running Time: 85 minutes
Genre: Romance, drama
Poland, 1949: Musical director Wiktor (Kot) meets aspiring singer Zula (Kulig) and the two fall madly, obsessively in love. The film charts their tumultuous personal and professional lives against the backdrop of the turmoil of post-war Europe, as they move back and forth from Poland, to Yugoslavia, to East Germany, to France.
Crisply photographed in luminous black-and-white this is a stunningly beautiful film. It also features a fantastic soundtrack mixing traditional Polish folk songs, jazz, classical, and fifties pop music. However there is very little chemistry between the two pretty unlikeable leads, and while there is supposed to be white-hot passion between them, they don't even really seem to like each other very much. The narrative is very fragmented, it takes place in a lot of locations over a very long period of time. Wiktor and Zula both get together and split up with a number of different people, none of whom really make an impression, which becomes quite confusing, for example in one scene it is mentioned briefly that Zula has a child who is never even referenced afterwards. It's one of those romances where none of the characters make an impact aside from the central pair. The film does reference the political situation in Europe at the time, but it helps if you already have some knowledge of it, because the film doesn't explain much.
It is worth watching because it is a very beautiful film, and the ending packs a real emotional punch. I'm glad that I saw it, but I wouldn't really say that I enjoyed it, and I'm not in any hurry to see it again.
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