Ann, Jack, and I loved this sad love story about musicians/performers in mostly communist Europe from 1949-1964. Ironically it made me happy, not because of the star-crossedness of the lovers but because of the magnificent Oscar-nominated cinematography, the tight editing, and the inclusion of two of my favorite genres of music: jazz ballads and female choirs singing Slavic folk songs. More on that in a moment.
Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig are Wiktor and Zula, named for and based in part on the parents of director/co-writer Pawel Pawlikowski (profiled in Ida, winner of the Foreign Film Oscar in 2015). Kulig (she looks a lot like a young version of Swedish actress Liv Ullmann) was also in Ida, though I didn't mention it, and Kot is new to me.
Pawlikowski co-wrote the screenplay with Janusz Glowacki and "with the collaboration of" Piotr Borkowski. In addition to his parents, Pawlikowski drew inspiration from an actual Polish folk music ensemble. He is nominated for the Best Director Oscar and the movie is up for Best Foreign Film at those awards in three weeks. More nominations and awards are in my list.
Besides the Academy Award nomination for cinematographer Lucasz Zal (he was nominated for shooting Ida) he is nominated for this movie by his peers in the American Society of Cinematographers. The movie is in black and white with stunning effects of tone and is in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1, with wide black letterbox strips on the sides. For comparison's sake, old school TVs were 1.33:1 (4:3), modern widescreen TVs are 1.78:1 (16:9), and most theatres display 2.35:1 (21:9).
Pianist Marcin Masecki is credited with arranging all the "jazz musics & songs" as well as playing most of them. I particularly liked the brass harmonies in the jazz combo. And there's one sequence of a close-up of what have to be his hands playing a difficult classical piece (maybe the Chopin) panning slowly up to Kot's face. Like I said at the beginning: tight editing!
The leitmotif of the movie is the folk song Dwa Serduska, which translates to two hearts. It's sung several times in the movie, including by the folk ensemble and jazz versions in Polish and French. As for the rest of the soundtrack, Apple Music has failed me this time, publishing only three songs, though they're good ones: Kulig singing jazz versions of Two Hearts in Polish and French and another ballad in French. To hear just the jazz ballad, go to this YouTube link. The choir version from the original ensemble, not the movie, can be heard on this link. For the rest of the music, try this spotify playlist (not every song is exactly as in the movie, but they're close). For a change, imdb has what looks like a complete list of the songs. Then, after seeing it, you may want to read about the music in this Vulture article.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics are heated up on this one, averaging a deserved 94% and its audiences are close behind at 85.
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