Cold War

This Polish production tells of the romance between a composer and a singer across the Iron curtain from the mid 40s to the early 60s, dropping in and out as they move from Poland to Berlin to Paris to several other locations. The problem, for me, is that, though this is gorgeously shot throughout in immaculate black and white, with a sweet jazz soundtrack, I never got remotely invested in the central romance - it all feels awfully shallow, stylish images without anything really going on underneath. Everything's at the level of a perfume advertisement. The tendency of the film to stop-and-start at various intervals, picking them up a couple of years on, never really develops any momentum or shape within the segments or across them - neither of the couple are particularly intriguing seperately or together. Yes, they're physically attractive people, but there's nothing particularly going on beyond that to make them in any way compelling. So in the end, this is classy dullness.