The tranquility in the turmoil, the eternity in an instant——On the images and music of "Cold War"

Miles 2021-12-27 08:01:58

The full text is more than 3,000 words and was first published in the December issue of "China and Foreign Military Film and Television."

In the cold winter wind, people in the countryside sang their own ballads. The male protagonist Victor and another female musician, Ilena, recorded those pure and natural songs-the movie "Cold War" used this A set of scenes of "sing and dance troupe going to the countryside to collect the scenery " started. Everything is so primitive and so peaceful. It seems that it has nothing to do with the "Cold War", but this is "Cold War" by the director Paviu Pav. The disgusting work that Likovsky brought after five years of leaving the film world.

Little girl singing folk songs

The film takes Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris during the Cold War as the background, telling a love story in a difficult period. Victor, a musician who pursues freedom, and a young female singer full of passion fall in love at first sight. They are blocked by politics and the situation, but they have been entangled in endlessly for more than ten years, tossing around everywhere, exhausting everything to pursue eternal love.

According to the director himself has said, the two main characters name from his parents, Victor and real Zula died in 1989, " two people living together for 40 years, constantly shifting alliances, the Iron Curtain The two sides follow each other and punish each other ", "both are strong and excellent characters, but at the same time, they are a couple who will never cease fighting." From the story of his parents, the director Paviu Pavlikowski was inspired to shoot "Cold War", but from the film, we can see that the male protagonist Victor and the director himself also have a high degree of overlap : Paviu Pavlikowski was born in Warsaw, Poland. He left Poland at the age of 14, lived in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and now lives in his native Poland. Going back makes Paviu Pavlikowski have a unique sense of identity for Poland like Victor in the movie, and the lost cultural foundation allows the director to form a unique image style .

Movie "Nun Ada" stills

"Cold War" and Paviu Pavlikowski’s predecessor, "Nun Ada", both adopted black and white photography. Unlike the "Nun Ada" dominated by photography, the director Paviu Pavlikowski better balances the audiovisual language and the story language in "Cold War". Photography and music are perfectly integrated into the story of "Cold War", and audiovisual language also assumes part of the narrative function. It was "Sister Ada" that failed to achieve. The high degree of unity between the two allowed Paviu Pavlikowski to win the title of best director at the 71st Cannes Film Festival.

Paviu Pavlikowski

In 1935, the first color film in history, "The Flashy World" came out. Since then, the film has not only pictures and sounds, but also colors. In the following decades, color films have dominated the mainstream of movies, but there is always a group of people who still miss the simple black and white images in the colorful world , such as the "Four New German Films" Wim. Wenders's "Under the Sky of Berlin", Christopher Nolan's feature film debut "Follow", Jiang Wen's "The Devil Is Coming", etc., a large number of black and white films born in the color film era also have extraordinary charm .

Movie "Under the Sky in Berlin" stills

For color movies, color matching and collision are particularly important; for black and white movies, the color becomes single and there is no color diversity, but the contrast of the picture is definitely better than color photography, and the light and composition are to a large extent Determines the quality of photography. In the age of color movies, people who can make good black and white movies are becoming scarce. Some black and white movies with outstanding photography have also become the subject of hot discussion among contemporary audiences, such as "The Artist", "Nebraska", and "Edder". "Wood" and so on, they use black and white photography to enhance the expressiveness of lines or patterns, and some literary directors are struggling to get enough investment and choose black and white photography to eliminate the interference of color .

Stills from the movie "The Artist"

Of course, this is not denying color movies. Many directors choose to respond to emotional interactions through the presence or absence of color . We still remember the little girl in the red coat in the dim picture in Schindler’s List. Incompatible with the surrounding environment, a touch of red illuminates the hearts of the audience; in "The Devil Is Coming", the entire village is shrouded in the shadow of the invaders. Only after the head of Ma Dasan fell, did he see the colorful The world; in "Happy Valley", the hopeless dystopian world is decorated with colors. Color and black-and-white photography complement each other. Today, when the development of theory has gradually stagnated and the boundaries of film have gradually stabilized, it is a new direction.

Movie "Schindler's List" stills
Movie "Happy Valley" stills

"Cold War" mostly uses the most sparse and common elements in life, but uses high-contrast images to highlight the theme and weaken the "Cold War" environment. This also overlaps with the director's minimalist concept to a certain extent. In Warsaw in 1951, the song and dance troupe held a dance after the performance. In the interlocking ambitions, Victor and Zula, who were far apart, looked at each other. There was a crowd between them, but they kept looking at each other. Prom shots like this abound in movies. Victor and Zula have always been away from the crowd, politics, and reality. They yearn for freedom and love with dignity—even if a life without dignity is at your fingertips. , They never succumbed . The camera condenses their eyes on each other. Their eyes are only each other. It can be said that Victor and Zura live in their own small world. In this world they are completely free, but they cannot escape from this. The world, unable to return to the real society, freedom has become the biggest obstacle to love and eternity for the two.

The director Paviu Pavlikowski deliberately ignored the external environment and made the audience forget that the film took place during the Cold War, as if it were just like the American movie "One Day", which caused the hero and heroine to constantly miss it in peaceful times. It wasn’t until the end of the film that Victor’s fingers were twisted to the point that he could no longer play the piano, and Zula gave himself to free Victor, that we suddenly realized: It’s not that reality is not cruel, but that the director uses the eyes of the camera to let the audience. Saw the best side.

The photography style of "Cold War" is the same as that of "Sister Ida", but director Paviu Pavlikowski did not blindly repeat himself. In this film, the director used more in specific locations. Sports shots. For example, when the male and female protagonists gather in Poland, photography often uses fixed lenses to show the political instability and the suppression of the environment during the transition of Polish society; when the two meet in Paris, the sports long shots dominate, Vic Doo and Zula strolled through the streets of Paris, walked through the dance parties in Paris, passed the streets and buildings of Paris on the Seine, and sang the songs they used to be in the club. The atmosphere of freedom and romance spread from the screen. The obscure lens changes have a high degree of overlap with the protagonist's state. People have to admire the director's control of the film as a whole, even if the film's story is fragmented and fragmented. Paviu Pavlikowski's lens Still bears part of the narrative function.

The photography of "Cold War" deliberately ignores the world situation, and there is no music. As a film with music as the main clue, the music selection of "Cold War" is more obviously connected with politics . At the beginning of the movie, we saw members of the singing and dancing troupe go to the countryside to collect the scenery together, recording a simple song in the snowy season, but after the first performance, we were asked to sing something "about land reform, the world" The songs of "Peace and Threats to Peace", the impact of ideology and the intervention of the political environment changed the original intention of the song and dance troupe. Those simple songs also lost their vitality and foundation, and became the product of political propaganda and going global. The “Cold War” environment is fully reflected in music: in Berlin, the curtain became a huge portrait of the great leader Comrade Stalin; in Paris, Zura sang a jazz version for the audience in Victor’s club When finally returning to Berlin, the heroine Zula wore a black wig and a backless dress, singing a Mexican-style song drunk. The folk songs that were once adapted are now completely unrecognizable, completely reduced to the product of political games and institutional propaganda, and the artistry of music has been completely obliterated in social changes. Director Paviu Pavlikowski used the same music to sing in different periods to highlight the changes in the environment, which was organically integrated with the world before and after the Cold War.

"Cold War" uses images to blind the oppression of reality, and uses music to break through the ideal world. When Victor and Zura’s personal world was stabbed all over by the spear of reality, the deformed music directly broke their fantasy, but can they be free in the real world? No, all they get is greater resistance and tighter restraints.

Paviu Pavlikowski’s "Cold War" is static . Victor and Zura knew that they could not get freedom and eternity in the turbulent real world. They quietly returned to the dilapidated church in the country. After more than ten years of displacement, he became a real husband and wife.

Roofless church, twisted fingers

The two of them sat on the bench by the big tree, looking at the distant scenery, what were they thinking in their hearts? Was Victor thinking about the young girl with ponytails and bangs? Is Zula regretting that he did not go into exile with the man who yearned for freedom? We don't know, but at that moment, the turbulent world seemed to have got a moment of tranquility, and in that moment they really got eternal love and freedom . The picture seems to freeze right here, still in this turbulent tranquility, still in this moment of eternity.

"Go to the other side, the scenery over there is more beautiful."

Zura’s voice broke the tranquility and eternity. Victor and Zura found the unconstrained world they yearned for, but we couldn’t see a more beautiful scenery, nor could we go to the "other side", what we could see It was still the benches and lush trees on which they had been sitting, like images that have never changed since time immemorial, as if they had never appeared before.

Perhaps only they themselves know that for the tranquility in this turmoil and the eternity of the moment, they have given everything they have.

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Extended Reading

Cold War quotes

  • Zula: Let's go to the other side.

    [pause]

    Zula: The view will be better there.

  • Wiktor: Edith Piaf worked in a brothel and the people love her even more for it.