MUSIC LOVERS (COLD WAR)

A black and white film, not in the English language, could walk away on Sunday night with the Best Picture Oscar.

That film is Alfonso Cuaron's autobiographical Mexican tale 'Roma'.

However another black and white film not in the English should also have been a Best Picture nominee this year.

Pawel Pawlikowski's 'Cold War' is a jaw droppingly beautiful episodic film - dazzlingly shot, artfully constructed, brilliantly acted.

Set in the years 1949 to 1964, it depicts a passionate love affair between Joanna Kulig's feisty Zula and Tomasz Kot's Wiktor against the backdrop of an oppressive, paranoid Communist regime.

Zula and Wiktor's love is even more tormented than Emma Stone's Mia and Ryan Gosling's Sebastian in 'La La Land'.

Like Damien Chazelle's film, Pawlikowski's weaves a rich tapestry of music to accentuate the joy and the pain - although its sweep is even more elaborate, taking its audience on a sonic journey from rough edged Polish folk songs recorded in the poorest parts of the country to polished choral music blended with an orchestra in concert halls to jazz and rock n'roll in the clubs of Paris.

At the start of the film, we see Wiktor and his fellow musicologist Agata Kulesza's Irena travelling to the remotest communities in a van, tape recording villagers performing folk songs.

Soon they are auditioning young people for a show celebrating Polish culture under the beady eye of Borys Syzc's musical director who has a direct line to the Communist Party and a PhD in bubbling menace.

The party apparatchiks believe folk music is the authentic sound of the Polish people and want a show that fills their citizens with national pride but as the show gains success, they become more dictatorial about its content, with Lech insisting on adding in songs praising Josef Stalin.

During auditions Zula catches Wiktor's eye, singing a song which Agata realises is not a folk song but is cribbed from a Russian movie. Nevertheless, Wiktor is smitten and argues successfully for her inclusion in the music and dance troupe.

During rehearsals and as the show starts to tour, they become lovers.

Zula has a real edge to her - she claims to have stabbed her father and later confesses in the paranoid climate of communist Poland that Lech has asked her to spy on Wiktor.

However Wiktor is so deeply in love, he plots their defection to the west during a performance in east Berlin.

After a performance at a Communist gala in Berlin, Wiktor waits in the snow with a suitcase near a checkpoint with a view to heading escaping with her to Paris.

But Zula does not show up and they end up on either side of the Iron Curtain. Wiktor finds work a jazz pianist in exile in Paris but his love for Zula doesn't fade.

Lovers come and lovers go for both of them and their torrid affair is constant and it is reignited when she travels to Paris with the ensemble and he to Yugiolavia.

As intense as the alchemy is between them, their fiery brew often ends up scalding them.

Inspired by Pawlikowski's parents, who shared Zula and Wiktor's names and penchant for turbulent romance, 'Cold War' is shot like his movie 'Ida' in a gorgeously melancholic black and white 4x3 ratio by Lukasz Zal, who has deservedly been Oscar nominated for his work.

It also thrives on the back of a cleverly constructed screenplay by Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Borkowski and is further boosted by the savvy musical direction of the avant garde pianist Marcin Maseki, who at one stage brilliantly captures Wiktor's turmoil during a jazz solo which falls to pieces.

At the heart of the film are two compelling performances by Kulig and Lot. Kulig plays Zula in a classic, devil may care European style - evoking memories of Jeanne Moreau's Catherine in Francois Truffaut's 'Jules at Jim' and tapping into an unpredictable edge that recalls other great actresses like Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy or Lea Seydoux.

Kot is also very engaging as Wiktor, a man so besotted with Zula he will endure decades of hardship just to be with her.

In fact, Pawlikowski delivers sensational performances all round.

Syzc's Lech is a wonderfully sly presence in the musical troupe - an ever watchful company man, dutifully reporting everything he sees and hears back to his Communist Party bosses.

Kulesza delivers some great knowing looks when she is onscreen that say more than any line of dialogue.

And there are impressive turns too from the French director Cedric Kahn as Michel, a record producer friend of Wiktor's and Jeanne Malibar as a poet, Juliette who he has a fling with in exile while still pining for Zula.

The whole gorgeous concoction is masterminded by Pawlikowski who has repeatedly proven in his career he can dazzle with captivating cinematic moments.

The standout moment in 'Cold War' is a sequence where Zula hears Bill Haley and the Comets' 'Rock Around The Clock' in a Paris bar and instinctively dances with a freedom and malevolence that is truly mesmerising.

'Roma' may deservedly walk away with a hat full of Oscars on Sunday night but 'Cold War' is every bit its equal.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature, Best Director and Best Cinematography, it would be a shame if it did not walk away with at least one.

('Cold War' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on August 31, 2018 and was released on DVD and streaming services on January , 2019)