seen on 5 December 2018
Paweł Pawlikowski directs Joanna Kulig as Zula, Tomasz Kot as Wiktor, Agata Kulesza as Irena and Borys Szyc as Kaczmarek, with Cédric Kahn as Michel and Jeanne Balibar as Juliette, in a film about two young Poles whose personal lives are complicated both by the innate tensions between them and by the pressures of the Cold War.
As in his previous masterpiece Ida (2013) Pawlikowski has composed his film in austere but luminous black and white; the early scenes in the wintry rural Poland of 1949 recall some of the atmosphere of the earlier film, with some quite breathtaking compositions of stark trees against the snow and an eerie vision of the white sky through a ruined church dome. But here, Wiktor and Irena are travelling through impoverished districts in a dilapidated bus under the supervision of Kaczmarek, a Party functionary; they are diligently recording folk songs.
