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Yesterday
I went to see a Polish-language movie called Cold War that has already
won numerous accolades across Europe, for its acting, direction and
cinematography, that apparently was financed by a mixture of some 17 companies
from several countries, and that, in my opinion, skilfully blended the story of
an aching personal love affair with the political situation throughout Europe
in the years between the movie’s first scene in 1949, and its last scene in the late 1960s.
This blending of the personal with
the political is not so easy to do, but it has been triumphantly achieved by the
director Pawel Pawlikowski. But to me the film will probably be memorable --- that in
itself is a big challenge, for I usually forget almost everything I have seen
or read by the following day, a lapse that can be overcome once I find a
trigger, a scene, or some indication, of what the film or book was about ---
because it brought to mind very vividly an era in which folk dance troupes from
the Soviet bloc regularly toured western theatres, playing to wildly
appreciative audiences everywhere.
The film opens with a beautiful young blonde woman, Zula, played by the riveting
Joanna Kulig, recently released from jail, being auditioned by a rather severe
somewhat older couple, for membership in
an about-to-be-formed song and dance troupe.
The man, Wiktor, played by Tomasz Kot, says to his companion that that
girl has something, and they should look at her again. The woman is rather
reluctant, but the girl is chosen, proves to have a good voice, excellent
discipline, and fits easily into the highly structured folk dance troupe
without any problem. There are indications that she becomes the lover of this
man, Wiktor, who is the musical director of the troupe, but things are moved
quickly on to the troupe’s first visit to Berlin, as if their relationship
means very little, especially compared with
the propaganda value of the troupe as it is emphasized in Berlin, as
well as by the relevant Polish authorities.
Soon the two lovers are seen
lying in a field, Zula saying she will never leave him, but later she
announces, “I am ratting on you.” She thus confesses she is answering questions
by the authorities as to his background, his objectives, his habits, whether he
has dollars, and so on.
He arranges for them to leave for Paris, but she doesn’t turn up. He is
settled in Paris, making a living as a musician, when she finally arrives. She
has married meantime, but neither doubts
that they belong together. As the film proceeds, she does reach the artistic
freedom of the west, but this is given a rather ironic twist when her favourite
folk song, sung with lusty pride in Poland, is sung --- beautifully, mind you
--- as a cabaret torch song in Paris. She dances to Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock and is seen later
performing as a fake Mexican in a fake mariachi band. “Can you get me out of
this?” she pleads. Within a short time she has left to return to Poland., and
he has been arrested for illegally crossing borders. Naturally, they finish together
after all their vicissitudes, but their ending is left as rather anomalous.
What stirred my memory are the shots of the troupe in action, the heavy,
circular, energetic dances of Eastern
European folk lore, their stamping feet, their harmonic, heavy singing of their
folk tunes, their remarkable acrobatic manoeuves: I must have attended quite a few such
concerts, it all came flooding back to me so strongly.
I especially remember meeting as
they got off the train at Montreal’s Windsor station the famed Moiseyev dance troupe
from Moscow. I tried to interview their charismatic director, a man basking in
accolades from throughout the western world, who seemed vastly amused to be the
centre of such attention.
He had a young interpreter, on
assignment from his job as a reporter for a Moscow trades union paper, whom I invited
to my house for an evening, which he accepted. We exchanged the usual
platitudes in these circumstances without getting much closer than just
expressions of goodwill. He suggested I should write an article for his newspaper
about Canada and its relationship to the United States.
I did as he suggested, and eventually
when he visited again as interpreter for the famous violinist, Leonid
Kogan, I saw the article that had been published in the Russian language with
my by-line. I had it translated by one of our staffers whose family came from
that part of the world, and to say the least, the translation of my carefully
guarded expressions of friendship was loose. I always expected to hear from the
RCMP admonishing me for my boldness in having my name featured in a Moscow
newspaper but if they ever heard about it they evidently decided its impact was
so minimal as to be beneath concern.
Contacts in those days between us and any citizens of the Soviet bloc
were always dominated by our built-in suspicion that they had in mind only
propaganda, and might be expected to try to
recruit you as a spy --- a ludicrous idea, when you come to think of it,
but one that was freely bandied about at the time.
I remember as a reporter whose assignment was to cover the hotel beat,
that I was told a Soviet agricultural delegation was staying in the Laurentien
hotel. They gave me the room number, so I went up, knocked on their door, and
when I announced that I was from the local press, was welcomed in
enthusiastically by a robust, genial elderly man who seemed delighted to have
run up against an ordinary resident of Canada. He had a bottle of vodka sitting
on top of the room’s TV set, hidden
behind a newspaper folded in front, but only minutes after I arrived in his
room he had whipped the newspaper aside, opened the bottle and was pouring
generous drinks all around. It was not yet 10 o’clock in the morning, rather early
to engage in a heavy round of alcoholic drinks, but I figured the honour of the nation was at
stake, and I manfully undertook to match them glass for glass. An hour and a
half later I staggered back to the office, where I wrote an eloquent tribute to
the need for our two sparring nations to set our differences aside in the name
of peace in the world.
My name must have gotten into someone’s data base in Moscow, because on
another occasion, when I was out of town, a small group of actors, headed by an
elderly man who was said to be one of the great men of the Soviet theatre,
turned up at my house with their young interpreter. My wife, who was charmed to
the back teeth by this old man, had an evening with them that she never forgot,
but unfortunately she forgot the name of the elderly actor, so I never did
discover which great star of the Moscow stage
we had entertained.
Later, in London, I
considered it part of my professional duty --- although it really wasn’t --- to
maintain some contacts with operatives from the Eastern bloc, partly because I
really always did believe the cold war was unnecessary rubbish, but also
because for the most part they were always amiable and friendly, although the
odd one could be boring as hell.
I used to meet them once a year, in addition, at the annual conferences
of the Labour Party, where it was always my pleasure to spend the evenings
drinking with old-time British trades unionists, along with the occasional
Eastern diplomat. One chap in particular was especially amiable, John Mrazek, a
diplomat with the Czechoslovakian embassy. He was a real hail-fellow-well-met
type of guy who had worked hard to be accepted by the leaders of British
society, and had succeeded in receiving many invitations to the homes of the
nobs. A few years later I was called in
by MI5, the British secret police service and questioned about my contacts; I
had expected them to concentrate on a young Russian whose name I have
forgotten, but whose behaviour seemed the closest I had struck that might be
interpreted as that of a spy. But no,
their interest was in John Mrazek, who they told me was an operative of his
country’s secret service, but had never been anything but proper towards me.
Years later I read a book by a man who had defected from the Czech
service, who told an interesting story about Mrazek, who he said was a man who loved to dream up
extravagant plots. One of these concerned Edward Heath. at the time Leader of the Opposition
to the government of Harold Wilson, He was known to be a skilled organist, and
was suspected in some circles of being gay. It appears the Czech operatives had
discovered that one of the world’s great organs was in a church in Prague, that
Heath longed to play it, and so John Mrazek set up for him to meet a leading
Czech organist who would invite him to his city for that purpose. While he was there
he was to be photographed in a compromising situation of some kind, and
threatened with exposure if he did not co-operate. It appears Heath had gone so far as to accept
the kind invitation of the Czech musician, and was all ready to go when MI5 stepped in to warn
him of the dangers, so that he cancelled the visit. That was probably John Mrazek’s last, foiled, plot.
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