The Amazon Prime Highlight: “Cold War,” a movie that had its theatrical debut in the United States on Dec. 21, 2018, and subsequently earned multiple Oscar nominations. “Cold War” joined Amazon as an Original on March 22.
Premise: A love story between two musicians living under Joseph Stalin’s oppressive Communist regime in the early 1950s. Before the love story kicks off, a man and woman travel across rural countrysides in this European territory, collecting folk songs together. This duo then finds other young (and more beautiful) peasants to perform the songs in a touring stage show. The man and one of the performers then begin a perilous relationship.
Sum up: As mentioned above, “Cold War” earned three nominations at the most recent Academy Awards, with honors for Best Director, Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Despite the pretentious choice to shoot in black-and-white (also looking at you, “Roma”), the romantic story at the heart of this keeps the narrative zipping along at a contemporary pace. And the camera captures beautiful and unique shots for almost every scene, so this easily rises to an absolute pleasure to watch.
Heads up: “Cold War” is a foreign language film in multiple non-English languages, so you’ll likely have to read subtitles the whole time. But with a far-from-boring plot and a runtime that only lasts 1 hour, 28 minutes, you shouldn’t stay away in fear this will be one of those movies that only critics like.
Will everyone be talking about this? It already reached its apex by earning the Oscar nominations. I hope more people give it a shot now that it’s on Amazon Prime.
Check out the trailer for “Cold War” below.
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Here’s the trailer:
