The Eddy (2020)

I feel like I was a little deceived. I thought that Damien Chazelle was doing the whole series but it turns out that he only directed the first two episodes. But the marketing worked; his name drew me to this Parisian jazz drama. I didn't actually care much for the drama. But I love the jazz. I wish there was more music and less plot because the plot is messy. The characters' motivations are often fuzzy. They make irrational choices and most of them are pretty annoying. It was ultimately worth watching for the music and the great jazz memorial scene.

Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018)

2018 was the year that two foreign auteurs directed very personal black-and-white dramas placed within a wider political context. Roma and Cold War are both beautiful; both directors are Oscar winners; and the movies are being distributed by competitors Netflix and Amazon. Roma is getting all the press and I think it's because Cold War is a more difficult movie. They both move very slowly but Cold War is thematically darker. Though there is tragedy in Roma, they experience joy. Even when Wiktor and Zula are madly in love, their joy is brief if they're feeling joyous at all. Eastern Europe in the Cold War seems miserable.  This is not a happy musical. It is melancholy. It is depressing folk music. Folk music doesn't really excite people the way it apparently used to. Even the jazzed up version is the depressing kind of Parisian jazz. The leads are alluring at both ends of the spectrum. Mirroring the Cold War that heats up and cools down, their relationship is all over the place. They separate and get back together, back and forth, and the actors are fabulous in both states of togetherness.