Here is an approach that uses an iterator for a change.

list_1 = [1,2,2]
list_2 = [1,2,3,4,5]

it = iter(list_2)
res = []
for take in list_1:
  res.append([next(it) for _ in range(take)])
print(res)  # -> [[1], [2, 3], [4, 5]]

Of course, a list-comprehension version of that exists as well¹:.

it = iter(list_2)
res = [[next(it) for _ in range(take)] for take in list_1]

Finally, as @Chris_Rands notes in the comments below, you can use islice from the extremely useful itertools module. It takes care of the iterator-creating part of the code above and is this thus more compact.

import itertools


res = [list(itertools.islice(list_2, take)) for take in list_1]
print(res)  # -> [[1], [2, 3], [4, 5]]

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¹ Just remember to re-create the iterator!

You need to double the {{ and }}:

>>> x = " {{ Hello }} {0} "
>>> print(x.format(42))
' { Hello } 42 '

Here's the relevant part of the Python documentation for format string syntax:

Format strings contain “replacement fields” surrounded by curly braces {}. Anything that is not contained in braces is considered literal text, which is copied unchanged to the output. If you need to include a brace character in the literal text, it can be escaped by doubling: {{ and }}.