‘Come to the other side. There will be a better view from there.’

Paweł Pawlikowski’s charming new drama examines the destructive side of a passionate but temperamental love affair set in 1950s Poland, when composer Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and singer Zula (Joanna Kulig) allow their ideological and emotional differences to come between them time and time again, only to be drawn back by their deep infatuation. It’s a story about a universal tragedy: the trap of believing that the grass is always greener on the ‘other side’ and the opportunities that are wasted when we fail to stand our ground against this delusion. Despite the film’s title, politics and Poland’s Stalinist and National Communist regimes take a back seat in the film’s narrative, serving primarily as a divisor between the two lovers; the brooding threat of Mutually Assured Destruction within the film is of no direct relation to the international tensions of the 50s and 60s, but relayed through the emotional damage that each failed affair has upon its protagonists. All’s fair in love and war — but Zimna Wojna is a Cold War of emotions between two people who seem to need and resent each other in equal parts.

The film, at its core, runs on a familiar will-they-won’t-they narrative, though with far less humour and considerably greater consequences than we have come to expect from the trope. The affair takes the couple across borders — a development which does not sit well with the Polish government — and involves numerous other lovers who can never hope to complete the protagonists in the same way we hope to see them complete each other. Time feels very present — not least because we are reminded of the date at each of the film’s many time-skips — but also because each rendezvous and subsequent parting between the two protagonists comes with a price. Their relationship becomes fractured and difficult, and it becomes harder with each scene not to doubt that their relationship can ever be repaired. To anyone who has experienced a long distance or on-and-off relationship, it feels like a very personal blow.

Comparisons are inevitably going to be made to Pawlikowski’s previous work, Ida (2013). The films share a bleak (but not hopeless) tone, as well as the more obvious monochrome mock-historical aesthetic shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio. On first impression, I was a little hesitant at the return of this latter technique, wondering if Pawlikowski might have exhausted its potential. Admittedly the cinematography doesn’t seem to work quite as hard as it did in Ida, where the aspect ratio creates vast, scenic, empty spaces above the action and the characters, which simulates an oppressive godly presence that follows the titular novitiate in her every moment. Nonetheless, there are plenty of beautiful shots in Zimna Wojna. Most notably, reflections are an apparent fascination this time around, which neatly mirrors the central theme of the illusory greener ‘other side’ of the grass, although the limitations of this technique don’t create the same daunting atmosphere throughout as he did in Ida.

The mirror only grants us an impression of where Wiktor is looking — though we assume it’s towards Zula, just visible at the table, right. To have to guess, rather than to be shown explicitly, creates a sense of intrusion.

Another aspect Zimna Wojna also shares with Ida is its brevity. While many of my personal favourite popular film-makers who might be considered ‘art directors’ — e.g. Tarantino, Villeneuve, P. T. Anderson — are often embroiled in the quest to create sprawling epics running in excess of 150 minutes, Pawlikowski continues to produce short, sweet 80-minute features that pack just as much punch as any other. It’s possibly the most refreshing aspect of the film. There is absolutely no fluff, no waste, and the result for me was a rare want for more during the closing credits. Not only is this pleasant in itself, but it reinforces the sense of lost time and opportunity in the film; we want for more time for the characters to share together, just as we want to watch more of Pawlikowski’s magic. I can only hope that this time we won’t have to wait five years to get it.