A Free Translation: Memory, History and Authenticity in 'Cold War' (2018)

Paweł Pawlikowski fictionalizes personal, cultural and historical memory in this breathtaking miniature epic

At this point, I feel confident in saying I’ll never read a single one of the seven volumes of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I can say with equal certainty that I’ve had one of Proust’s eponymous moments, the kind described in that much-discussed, little-read collection. Last January, around 17 minutes into my first viewing of Cold War, I was transported through my own past and placed inside a memory I thought I’d forgotten. Philadelphia’s Ritz East (one of the city’s depressingly few arthouses) became its Kimmel Center nearly 15 years earlier. I was not alone among strangers watching a film, but seated alongside my family watching Maszowse, the real-life inspiration for Mazurek, Cold War’s Polish folk troupe.

These sights and sounds from my personal, cultural and familial memory hit me like a blast of freezing air. I was so moved as to become totally uncritical, unthinking throughout the rest of the film. Repeat viewings of Cold War have found me listening more carefully and watching more intently. That first one was different. It overwhelmed me with sounds of applause and an unexpected sense of cultural pride. I was much younger again in that sense, too. I watched and listened the way a child watches and listens to their grandparents and great grandparents while they blend personal and cultural history to create their own approximations of the family story. That is, with an unquestioning ear and little thought for the influence of bias, the imperfection of memory or — perhaps most crucially — the desire to entertain.

Mazurek and Maszowse are essentially propagandistic. Both deal in what director Pawel Pawlikowski has called “fakelore,” an idealized, sanitized version of the Polish peasantry and its musical traditions. Pawlikowski presents viewers with an approximation of this approximation and engages in that familiar sort of myth-making throughout Cold War. Across several continents and 15 years, he mixes a fictionalized version of Maszowse’s founding with a more heavily fictionalized version of his parents’ unconventional love story. The first provides a look at the uneasy relationship between the political, commercial and artistic spheres; the latter applies cinematic glamour and melodrama to a real relationship that Pawlikowski admits mostly “felt like a really bad marriage.” Together, they suggest that neither authentic art nor authentic affection can survive the ravages of time and history. It’s only through memories — inauthentic, idealized, approximate — that they can ever really exist at all.

The director dedicates the film to his parents and lends their real names to its leads: Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig). Pawlikowski does not, however, let his closeness to the material keep him from moments of bitterness and cold, ironic distance. This is not a mere retelling, but a knowing refraction, a tale informed as much by mystery as by memory, as much by cinematic invention as by personal reflection. Wiktor is no longer a doctor like Pawlikowski’s father, but a musician and composer traveling the Polish countryside to record songs, observe dances and establish a national troupe called Mazurek. It’s a mission that’s inherently flawed. While he and his partner Irina (Agata Kulesza) take pride in preserving folk art, the more pragmatic and philistinic Administrative Manager, Lech Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc), wonders aloud if it’s all “too primitive.” He’s utterly disengaged, enjoying a bowl of soup while his comrades listen to “Dwa Szwerduska” (the film’s unofficial theme) for the first time. The party’s journey throughout the snowy reaches of the Fatherland introduces them to a host of homegrown musicians and at least one born performer.

Zula, a ballerina in life, becomes a “bit of a con” on screen. She’s not “from the mountains,” let alone a student of the region’s musical customs. Though her audition certainly includes “the music of pain and humiliation . . . joy too, even if through tears,” the love song she performs (from a Soviet musical) sounds nothing like the “peasant style” that Wiktor, Kaczmarek and Irina are ostensibly searching for. “What is it about?” asks Wiktor. “Love, of course,” Zula replies, “Heart.” All love songs deal in approximation and metaphor, she seems to suggest, why pride traditional Polish ones over cinematic ones? Wiktor’s inability to look away and his insistence that “Energy, spirit” and “something original” trump the purity of their mission suggest he agrees. Zula rises to become the new star of their production.

Mazurek’s first performance — the one that sent me back in time — causes a stir: the skeptical administrative manager sings its praises; the conductor and star strike up an affair and the state government has some suggestions. The troupe’s current repertoire still lacks for songs about “Land Reform” and “World Peace.” Both could make Mazurek a “living calling card for the fatherland” and take them far beyond Warsaw. Irina dismisses these additions outright. Mazurek, she argues, isn’t meant to represent the Global Proletariat. The group preserves “authentic folk art,” honoring both the style and subject matter of a specific rural population. She’s the only character who ever uses the word “authentic” and she’s clearly the most unwavering in her ideas about what it should mean. She questions Kaczmarek’s influence much the same way she questioned Zula’s infiltration, recognizing them both as opportunists and potential threats to Mazurek’s “authentic” mission. Before the new, politicized Mazurek has finished its first performance (standing before a massive portrait of Stalin), Irina has exited the theater and the film. Wiktor doesn’t speak up, opting instead to quietly deride Mazurek’s new direction. It’s clear though that he’s ashamed. With Stalin’s eye looming over Zula’s shoulder, Wiktor won’t hold eye contact with either his on-screen or off-screen audiences.

Under Kaczmarek’s command, the group swears an oath to its Fatherland and begins styling itself like a paramilitary group. When its Administrative Manager demands “a folk appearance. A pure Polish, Slav look,” we realize that Mazurek’s commitment to authenticity has taken a sinister tone. Kaczmarek’s corruptive influence reaches Wiktor and Zula’s relationship as well. She is “ratting” on Wiktor, offering Kaczmarek weekly updates on his philosophies and political leanings. This revelation puts the initial cracks in what will shortly become a shattered relationship, one that music and fate will repeatedly, all-too-briefly repair throughout the rest of the film. The definitive break comes when Mazurek embarks on its first tour, Wiktor recognizes the trip as an opportunity: he and Zula will escape into the West and away from the life that made her desperate enough to audition for Mazurek in the first place. She can’t risk it.

From here, Pawlikowski breaks Wiktor and Zula’s romance into five more abbreviated fragments. Cold War’s black and white imagery is sumptuous, shimmering with a quality that reminds you why they call it the silver screen. Its boxy aspect ratio makes every second all the more wistful with its evocation of family photographs and — more importantly — the cinema of past generations. Pawlikowski and cinematographer Lukasz Zal suggest that they agree with Zula and Wiktor about the power of the movies. Cold War doesn’t just look impossibly beautiful; It looks impossible altogether. Its every frame gives us history and emotion as only the big screen can depict them. For all these visual delights, Cold War lives most completely and cuts most deeply during the stark, black ellipses that divide (and occasionally interrupt) these fragments. The film’s unseen sequences and sudden, provocative silences provide it an epic scope that belies its 88-minute runtime. We spend precious few moments with Wiktor and Zula after their initial separation, but we suffer alongside them through every second of Cold War’s remaining decade-plus.

Mazurek grows into a broader and more muddled approximation throughout Wiktor and Zula’s separation. Its repertoire evolves well beyond the songs of a few Polish regions, beyond even the songs and sentiments that drove Irina and Wiktor away. The group’s performances are instead characterized by “style” and “zing,” their setlists supplemented with cheap crowdwork. Zula serves as the literal poster girl for this fresh bastardization of Mazurek’s “authentic folk art.” The new role represents a new level of stardom and reiterates her more pragmatic attitude toward questions of artistic integrity and authenticity. She is a performer above all, one who can only deviate from the script at her own peril. By the time they’re finally reunited — in Paris, 1959 — it’s Wiktor playing a part. He’s eager to hobnob with art world types and even more eager to embellish his lover’s (already dubious) backstory. Zula is mortified to learn that her reputation precedes her. In an effort to give her “more color” and build a more marketable character, he frames her as an approximation, the embodiment of peasant stereotypes and Cold War suspicions.

Even worse, Wiktor has commissioned a French translation of “Dwa Swersduska.” Zula scoffs at the updated lyrics and their empty metaphors. Free from her precarious past life, she is now privileged enough to insist on authenticity and, she hopes, create art on her own terms. She’s eager to speak up and take advantage of this new freedom. “What does it have to do with hearts?” she asks. He dismisses her concerns — “It’s a free translation.” It’s both an echo and a cruel reversal of their first conversation. Zula can barely hide her disdain. She’s had enough of settling for approximations. One line in particular, “the pendulum killed time,” stands out as especially inauthentic. She cannot make it fit the emotions she associates with the song and, as a result, cannot approximate those emotions convincingly. Wiktor quickly loses patience with her “blank” take on the song. Another fight leads into perhaps Cold War’s most provocative fade to black, a self-imposed separation, hours that must have felt interminable.

When Zula and Wiktor reunite for the last time, Pawlikoswki neglects to provide a location. By 1964, both may as well occupy states all their own. Estranged from their partners and their nation, they’re ill-defined, utterly lost. Zula looks more blank than ever performing “Baio Bongo,” a kitschy approximation of Latin music. She’s just slightly more convincing than the Polish mariachis who make up her backing band. The pop hit (what you might call a ‘product of its time’) is worlds removed from the timeworn, enduring songs that opened the film; it’s the antithesis of authenticity. Wiktor, for his part, is changed, too. Time has ended his career and afforded him some of Zula’s dark, ironic quality. She pleads, “get me out of here,” but it’s not the lofty request one might hear from the narrator of a song. There’s no hope for a happy ending, only the possibility that she and Wiktor might finally escape pain for good. It’s maybe the most unaffected she’s ever sounded, the most directly she’s ever spoken. Only by ending their lives can they swing the pendulum and finally kill time.

In addition to killing them all over again, Pawlikowski permits his parents to live forever (and live together) by resurrecting them for Cold War’s 88 minutes. Memories of this Zula and Wiktor will long outlive the real thing. Generations of passionate viewers will come to feel as if they know the couple like family. That’s certainly been the case for me in just under a year. Cold War has blurred the borders between Mazowse and Mazurek and my experiences with both; I can’t think of one without thinking of the other. In a sense, it recovered an old memory only to replace it with a new approximation, like preserving a folk song and translating it.

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