Cold War (2018) - Grating ending mars otherwise superb European love story

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+ Best B/W Movie of the Year + Polish Movie of the Year

The photogenic couple of Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War exude delicious love on this aesthetically delectable B/W poster for the film

Among a batch of young hopefuls to a rural music and dance school in Poland in 1949 is a young woman, whom one of the institution's leaders immediately strikes up a relation to, and the two subsequently share a complex love story under the duress of the Cold War.

Cold War is written by Janusz Glowacki (A Trip Down the River/Rejs (1970)), Piotr Borkowski (Fear of Falling/Lek Wysokosci (2011)) and its great Polish co-writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida (2013)), on whose parents' love story the story is based.
Cold War, - a title which both obviously refers to the politically and practically hostile climate people suffered under during Soviet Communism, as well as hinting at the mercurial, complex nature of the two leads' relationship, - is a rare, European treat: Pawlikowski and Co. reproduce another for younger generations far away but for older generations not so distant reality and way of life, and the production is evocative and sumptuous, yet subtly sumptuous, if such a thing exists, as it all is merely background for the film's main mission: A story of two partners in love.
Joanna Kulig (The Innocents/Les Innocentes (2016)) and Tomasz Kot (Life Must Go On/Zyc Nie Umierac (2015)) are terrific as the moody blond with the divine singing voice and he the older, respected musician, who suffers a fatal run-in with love in his meeting the other. 
Lukasz Zal's (Ida) stark B/W, and the film's 4:3 format, rare in modern cinema, help to relocate us to a different time and place, and we instinctively believe in our two protagonists' gnawing devotion, which is tested and inflicted pain through politically inflicted years apart. The photography is marvelously picturesque, and the film focuses on folk songs and traditional Polish music, which breaks forth with a rural poetic quality in these fine images.
Soviet influence soon ruins this by inserting autocratic idolatry and ideological brainwashing as the aim of all creative output, and circumstances wear and tear on the two.
SPOILER The film is a supreme experience until its ending, in which the couple engage in sudden suicide, - inside a derelict country church, no less. Pawlikowski's own parents, - who were neither musicians nor had a relation of the just 15 years that the story spans, - are thus put down by their son in a most mysterious and revolting ending for the film. - I haven't read anywhere whether they actually committed suicide together in real life, but regardless, this confusion and incomprehensible ending of the film seriously damages the lasting impact of Cold War. - The two also do not seem to have born their son the filmmaker yet! A superb film is therefore marred seriously by a seemingly excessively bitter pill of Eastern European suicidal romanticism, one of the worst movie endings in recent memory.

Related posts:


Pawel Pawlikowski: 2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Ida (2013) - Pawlikowski scores big with resounding identity-tale

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.3 mil. €, approximately 4.88 mil. $
Box office: 17.3 mil. $ and counting
= Big hit (returned 3.56 times its cost)
[Cold War premiered 10 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 85 minutes. Financing came together through no less than 24 companies and governmental bodies. Shooting took place in Croatia, Poland and Paris, France from January - August 2017. The film opened #35 to a 54k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it has peaked at #24 and currently in 217 theaters (different weeks), having grossed to date 2.1 mil. $ (12.1 % of the total gross). North America has been the 3rd biggest market; Cold War has done most business in Poland with 4.8 mil. $ (27.7 %) and France with 2.6 mil. $ (15 %). The film is nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Foreign Film, Director and Cinematography. It is also nominated for 4 BAFTAs, a British Independent Film award, won the Best Director prize in Cannes, nominated for a César award, won 5/6 European Film award nominations, a National Board of Review award and countless other honors. Pawlikowski is returning with Limonov (pre-production), - which is to be done in color. Kulig returned in Play (2018, short) and theatrically in Clergy/Kler (2018), Kot in Dzien Czekolady (2018). Cold War is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Cold War?

Brooklyn (2015) - Ronan captivates in Crowley's exquisite, soaring period romance drama masterpiece

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+ 3nd Best Movie of the Year
+ Most Deserved Hit of the Year 
+ Best Irish Movie of the Year  
+ Best Period Movie of the Year 
+ Screen Couple of the Year: Saoirse Ronan & Emory Cohen

Saoirse Ronan encapsulates the formidable power of John Crowley's Brooklyn in her look on this poster

In 1951, a young Irishwoman takes the big decision of moving to the US, where she makes a life for herself and falls in love, until an event in her family drives her back home again.

Don't judge Brooklyn out based on the possibly a bit unassuming quality of its poster and trailer; the film is pure gold!
Saoirse Ronan (Death Defying Acts (2007)) breaks out as a true star here, and she (and her incredible blue eyes along with her) simply becomes the moving Eilis Lacey here. She and Emory Cohen (Afterschool (2008)) as her Italian-American beau suit each other and the silver screen magnificently and seem destined to be the year's best movie pairing. Jim Broadbent (Another Year (2010)) also deserves singling out; here he is great as a priest.
Brooklyn has elegant, simple production design (by François Séguin (The Karate Kid (2010)) and photography by Yves Bélanger (Demolition (2015)) and a beautiful, Irish-inspired score by Michael Brook (The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)), which seems to play right into our very souls.
Brooklyn is a true winner that moves, inspires, causes recognition and joy, - and transforms your heart into a veritable lump of melting butter. It is written by Nick Hornby (Wild (2014)), based on the same-titled 2009 novel by Colm Tóibín (The Empty Family (2010)), and is the 5th feature directed by Irish master filmmaker John Crowley (Intermission (2003)).

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2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 11 mil. $
Box office: 62 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Brooklyn premiered 26 January (Sundance) and runs 112 minutes. Shooting took place from March - April 2014 in Ireland, including Dublin, New York and in Montreal, Canada, which doubled for Brooklyn. Funding came together as a puzzle from no less than 20 companies and governmental bodies. The film opened #30 to a 187k $ first weekend in 5 theaters (a solid 37k $ average) in North America, where it spread to peak at #9 and in 947 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 38.3 mil. $ (61.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 8.5 mil. $ (13.7 %) and Australia with 4.5 mil. $ (7.3 %). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Film, lost to the great Spotlight, Best Actress (Ronan), lost to Brie Larson in masterpiece Room, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Hornby), lost to Charles Randolph and Adam McKay for masterpiece The Big Short. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe, won 1 out of 6 BAFTA nominations, 1 out of 5 British Independent Film Awards, 2 out of 7 Irish Film and TV Awards and many other awards and honors. In Canada, which was one of the countries behind the film, it was the highest-grossing Canadian or part-Canadian film of 2015, making 4 mil. C$. In Ireland, it had the biggest opening (650k $) for an Irish or part-Irish film since 1996's Michael Collins. The film ranked on more than 120 film critics' Top 10 lists of the year. Crowley followed up his success with directing two episodes of True Detective's 2015 S2. His next feature is the much bigger (40 mil. $) budgeted drama The Goldfinch, starring Ansel Elgort and Aneurin Barnard, which is in pre-production. Brooklyn is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Brooklyn?

Teddy Bear/10 Timer til Paradis (2012) - Matthiesen's little gem of intercontinental romance

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The original Danish poster for Mads Matthiesen's Teddy Bear has a lovely photo from a beach in Thailand

 

Lonely bodybuilder Dennis of age 35 leaves his mother, whom he lives with in Rødovre, Denmark, to go on a trip by himself to Thailand to find himself a girlfriend.

Kim Kold (Fast & Furious 6 (2013)) is deeply sympathetic as Dennis, and Elsebeth Steentoft (Klown/Klovn: The Movie (2010)) and Lamaiporn Sangmanee Hougaard as his mother and new-found love are also very good.

Teddy Bear is a finely observed, underplayed, pleasant film. Its more poetic and better original title translates to '10 hours till paradise'. The depiction of the tyrannical mother opposite the good Dennis is a bit one-sided but it doesn't hurt the film much overall. It is written by Martin Zandvliet (The Model (2016)) and co-writer-director Mads Matthiesen (The Model) as his auspicious feature debut, based on his short Dennis (2007), also starring Kold as Dennis.

Matthiesen and Kold give an interview about the film at Sundance here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Unknown (but likely a huge flop)

[Teddy Bear premiered January 22 (Sundance) and runs 93 minutes. It was filmed in Denmark and Thailand. The film was released for 3 weeks in North America, where it topped at #76 in 2 theaters and grossed 16k $. Its only other publicized gross is in Poland, where it made 5k $. In its native Denmark, it sold 27,077 tickets, equal to approximately 270k $. These numbers together make it likely that the film should count as a huge flop theatrically at least. The film won the World Cinema - Drama directing award at Sundance. Teddy Bear is fresh at 93 % with a 7.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Teddy Bear?

Only God Forgives (2013) - Refn's violent vigilante beauty in Bangkok

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+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Danish Movie of the Year

Visually restrained yet fiercely energetic and powerful, this sun-drenched French poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives

Danish master filmmaker, writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive (2011)) returns to his old strange, twisted self with Only God Forgives, his 9th feature, which resembles his Mads Mikkelsen-starring mute viking psych-out Valhalla Rising (2009) and his John Turturro-starring crime mystery Fear X (2003) more than his preceding smash hit Drive. Perhaps therefore it disappointed a lot of critics and audiences at the time of its release, who, after the more conventional and very popular Drive, just didn't seem to get it.
- But pay no heed to that negative hype; Only God Forgives is an unmissable film. And how often does a phenomenal filmmaker invite us on a sword-and-martial-arts-mixing modern western myth with big stars in Bangkok? Frankly, I think that many critics and audiences were blinded by conventions and ungrateful, wrong expectations.

Only God Forgives is the story of two brothers. One is bad; he kills and rapes a young girl and gets murdered for it. The other tries to be good, but is damaged and put under new pressure by their ruthless, drug-running mother to avenge her lost son. Meanwhile, a fierce local cop exerts a kind of Old Testament justice in Bangkok's grimy netherworld of criminal filth.

In other words, it's a totally straightforward and perfectly understandable basic story. The pace is, - regardless of what others may write, - stable and continually moves ahead in an old-fashioned western/horror-kind of steady rhythm, - with gruesomely violent and sexually charged scenes coming one after the next, each serving a clear purpose for the story.
Ryan Gosling (Drive (2011)) is awesomely cool here once again as a very silent protagonist, - this time not as a winner type, however, - and British actress Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient (1996)), boldly gone along on this film which is nothing like what she usually does, is a superb matriarchal villain, whose deviousness and possible wrongdoings onto her sons in the past haunt her behavior - and theirs. Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm (The Hangover Part II (2011)) also does wonders as the mystical, local cop, who exerts a Dirty Harry (1971)/Death Wish (1974) type official vigilante justice, which feels fresh and unlike any before seen vengeance mission, both due to his performance and the execution, but also due to its implicit feeling of its being a mysterious, righteous justice from the East upon the traveling, incoming wretches of the West.
The title, like the rest of the film, is not designed to be a crowd-pleaser. Religious people will most likely dislike its implications, and surely we can all agree that it's not the nicest of thoughts that only God forgives. I think it is to be considered in terms of genre and as a hint as to the logic of the stern Thai avenger we meet in the film. Though Only God Forgives is an art film and a genre enjoyment, (SPOILER the gruesome eye-spearing shot is as taken right out of a Lucio Fulci horror film of the 1980s), its title is probably decided to resonance such films as Gianfranco Parolini's Lee Van Cleef-starring spaghetti western, God's Gun (1976). It also incarnates the villainous mother's crude perception of life.
DP Larry Smith (The Guard (2011)), composer Cliff Martinez (Contagion (2011)), costume designer Wasitchaya 'Nampeung' Mochanakul and art director's Witoon 'Boom' Suanyai and Russell Barnes (Howl (2010)) also deserve the highest compliments for an aesthetically amazing, pompously decadent and neon-drenched dream of a film, meticulously carved out, which looks and sounds amazing.

SPOILER Besides everything else, I love the film's strange, beautiful and darkly funny karaoke-sequences and the ending. Only God Forgives is a truly rare film that should be watched, and can be watched many times, each time registering something new.

It may also be Gosling's last starring vehicle in a good while, as he has said that he wants to retire from acting and is now directing his first, mysteriously sounding, How to Catch a Monster (2014), about a secret underwater town. (Ed. note: That film ended up being retitled Lost River (2014), a major flop which critics also axed, and Gosling is now back in front of the camera where he belongs.)

Refn is slated to do a 200 mil. $ remake of the 1976 sci-fi-classic, Logan's Run. Whether this will ever actually happen, and whether a good movie will come out of it, I have my anxieties and doubts. (Ed. note: This was scrapped, and Refn is instead focusing on a horror movie for 2016, titled The Neon Demon.) Together with Only God Forgives, his best film remains, in my opinion, Pusher II (2004), very worth seeing for anyone just slightly hooked by his films.

Related posts:

Nicolas Winding Refn: The Neon Demon (2016) or, Jesse Goes to Hollywood 

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

Top 10: Best Danish movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Drive (2011) - Refn's muscle-flexing, über-cool audience favorite
Bronson (2008) or, Violent Man

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Top 10: Best drug-themed movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

With Blood on My Hands: Pusher II/Pusher II (2004) - Refn's magnetic snapshot of Copenhagen's criminal underground

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Bleeder (1999) - The mysterious second film by Nicolas Winding Refn 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.8 mil. $
Box office: 10.6 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.2 times the cost)
[Only God Forgives premiered 22 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Bangkok. Thailand. The film opened #26 to a 313k $ first weekend in 78 theaters in North America, its peak there although it widened to 81 cinemas, grossing 779k $ (7.3 % of the total gross). North America was its 3rd biggest market. The biggest and 2nd biggest were France with France with 3.6 mil. $ (40 %) and the UK with 1.8 mil. $ (17%). The film won 3/7 nominations at the Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar), among other honors. Refn returned with a Hennessey X.O. commercial in 2016 and theatrically with The Neon Demon (2016). Gosling returned in The Big Short (2015); Thomas in Before the Winter Chill/Avant l'Hiver (2013); and Pansringarm in short film Gutted (2013) and theatrically in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013). Only God Forgives is rotten at 40 % and a 5.3/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Only God Forgives?