Ida

When I turned on the television the night of the Academy Awards early in 2015, I arrived just in time to see this movie win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. You probably already know the basic plot. On the eve of taking her vows in Poland in 1962, 18-year-old Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) goes to visit her aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza), and discovers that she was born Jewish, named Ida Lebenstein, and survived World War II, though her family did not.***************Spoiler Alert******************************************************************************************************************************************At this point, Anna, with the help of Wanda, starts searching for her parents' graves. The smoking, drinking, promiscuous, out-of-favor Communist judge Wanda, throws temptations to Anna to doubt God's existence and give in to sensuality from the start. Among cynical aunt Wanda's early lines:"So you are a Jewish nun?""You have to wear this hood all the time?""What if you ... discover there is no God?"But as Director Pawel Pawlikowski says in one of his interviews in the Extras, Anna's "faith is unshaken" by Wanda's words and actions.Wanda's frustration with Anna's firm self-possession reaches a peak as she says to her one night:"I'm a slut and you're a little saint ... This Jesus of yours adored people like me. ... Take Mary Magdalene. ... I won't let you waste your life!"Wanda tries to tempt Anna with the presence of a young man she is giving a ride to, the saxsophonist Lis (David Ogrodnik). Lis is clearly taken with Anna who nonetheless says she will continue to pursue her vocation. Giving voice to the powerful witness of Ida's purity and goodness, Lis says to her one night:"You"ve no idea of the effect you have, do you?"When Anna and Wanda are about to part ways, Wanda has clearly been softened by her niece's patient love with her, and gives her a hug. In response to a question from Anna, Wanda says, No, she won't be attending Anna's final vows but she'll drink to her.After this, the movie takes an unexpected (though not totally) turn as Wanda is shown smoking in a bath, a look of despair on her face. Next, she jumps out a window, committing suicide.At this point, still not having taken her final vows, Anna comes back to Wanda's house and is also shown at Wanda's funeral. Anna is shown back at the house smoking, drinking, and twirling around in an apparent drunken stupor. Next, she sleeps with Lis. At the end of this encounter, Anna asks Lis what they should do. Lis talks about getting married, getting a house, and having some children. As Lis keeps talking, every time he stops, Anna asks him: "And then?" Clearly, Eternity is still what is most important to her.Though she has delayed her vows, Anna is next shown in her habit, on her way back to the convent. This part of the movie was disappointing to me. After showing such firm virtue for most of the movie, the shock of Wanda's suicide seems to have driven Anna to seek to "experience" life before deciding which path she will take. Though possible, the loss of Anna's firmness of will seemed somewhat unbelievable, resulting in me giving the movie 4 stars instead of 5.***************End of Spoiler Alert***********************************************************************************************************************************The Extras feature fairly extensive interviews with Director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose English is quite good. The film is shot in black and white, which works well. For most of the movie there is very little camera movement. The film is in Polish with English subtitles. Agata Trzebuchowska as Anna/Ida Lebenstein was discovered in a cafe in Warsaw. She had no desire to be an actress and this was her first film. Her performance is excellent. Could a more experienced young actress have done a better job? I doubt it. In real life she describes herself as a feminist and atheist. "Ida" is to be praised for its examination of the mystery of suffering and unspeakable evil and atrocity as well as themes of conscience, vocation, and the interior life. Pawel Pawlikowski says he doesn't want the movie used as a "political ball ... (to examine) Polish-Jewish issues".

Even after watching giants like Saving Private Ryan, The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs, Schindler's List, etc., Ida remains the film that has captured me the most, and that I still call my single favorite film in existence.The most significant parts of this film to me are how the audio and camera affect the way in which the story is delivered. This is an incredibly dark story, yet it's subtly so. The way in which the camera is used, with very stable, straightforward shots, and the amount of silence among the characters and even overall, makes that subtly in the subject matter more effective, and it also makes the film somehow seem more real.Ida shows when it's characters are doing things that aren't all that interesting, but that's a big part of what makes this film interesting. The characters in this way are made more real. The lack of movement in the camera also makes the rare decision for a more unstable-looking shot more impactful.While this is a film that a Catholic like myself does really appreciate, it's not a film that picks a side between the catholic view of things and that of the world. If you are not a Christian, you would probably enjoy this film as well. If you are, it represents what of the catholic faith it depicts very well, even when it's a little uncomfortable.If you are a Christian, there is a sex scene toward the end of the film, but it is one of the few I've ever seen where I'm actually completely fine with the way it was done and can confidently watch it without feeling like I probably shouldn't. I would still be careful about it if struggle with sex, but if not, it's not provocative whatsoever, lasts a only a few seconds, only shoulders up are shown, and it serves a very legitimate purpose in the plot that makes such an event being in the story justified. In other words, nothing about it makes you feel aroused, because that isn't it's purpose, and so in the case, seeing fornication in the film is no different than seeing murder in another. It even acknowledges that, at least for a catholic, what they are doing doing isn't right.The story itself is probably the single biggest part that I have to praise: subtle, powerful, heartbreaking, dark, compassionate, and honest. But I will say nothing more on that. You need to watch it yourself, and know as little as possible going into it.Watch this film. It's well-worth your time, even if you don't end up thinking so highly of it as I do.

Not a stimulating movie by any means. Even as a devout Christian I found it predictable and anti-climatic. This was literally the most boring film ever! Where there were 'Oscar" credentials is beyond me. The acting was quite mediocre, the message so overused, and the scenes, quite frankly, lacked anything interesting in backdrop. All was drab, gray and dismal. It showed a novitiate's lifestyle to be every bit as boring and uneventful as any other life in a depressed country where the highlight of anyone's day is getting drunk and having sex. Big deal! No twist, no reality shockers...absolutely nothing to make this film memorable or provoking. I literally fell asleep, woke up, saw it was still on and forced myself to see it through to the end so I could substantiate this very poor rating of an even more bland film. The cinematography was terrible. Gray, gray, gray! Gray skies, gray backgrounds, even the buildings lacked character. There was absolutely nothing stimulating or striking to hold my interest or reflect upon. When done, I was like, "Geesh! Glad that's over with and what a waste of my valuable time!" I've had some experience in the filming industry. My advice to this filmmaker--don't bother! Let the professionals that know how to keep an audience's attention continue and leave the thought-provoking director's artistry to the real artists. Characters were transparent, unemotional, stony, and lifeless. Storyline had zero punch or emotional clout. Outcome was completely a gimme. Using the 'Jewish' label did absolutely nothing to enhance the impact nor drag a single tear out of me due to such poor acting. I rate it a 'B' for 'Blah!'

No Germans appear in the film. They aren’t even talked about, as if their existence had no meaning, as if they were too worthless to think about and mention. But what they did during the war in Poland lingers, the people marked by it. Memories run deep and some wounds will not heal.Anna is a young woman in a convent in Lodz. She’s 19 or 20 and the year is 1961, so perhaps she was born in about 1941. She is chaste and devout, dedicated to God, hers a life of surrender and abstinence. She finds meaning and purpose in the Saviour. From the outside devotion can look like a life wasted. But it’s something lived on the inside where feelings and the spirit reside. Anna is at peace with her life. Or nearly so.She is to take her vows some time in the forthcoming weeks. It’s a big step because once taken they cannot be easily rescinded. The holy vows are a symbolic merging of one’s spirit with God’s.Anna is summonsed by the Mother Superior. Family should be notified before the sacred vows are taken. But Anna has no family. She was brought to the convent as an orphan when she was just a small child, perhaps only a year old. However, the Mother Superior says Anna has an aunt who is still living. The convent has made attempts to contact her, but in vain, their letters unanswered. However, a letter from the aunt has recently arrived. In it the aunt says she does not want to meet Anna.Anna has the address of her aunt. She must go to her before taking her vows.She rides in a tram through the city, her face seen through glass. Reflections on it move across her face: clouds, tree branches, the tops of buildings. She gazes through the window passively, stoically, tranquilly. The world around her is busy but she is quiet within herself, self-contained.She finds the flat of her Aunt Wanda, this person she has never met, the sister of her deceased mother. Wanda has her own life and is not pleased to see her niece. Anna reminds her of another time, a different life now gone. Just as well, as nothing can bring it back. It ended hopelessly, bitterly. Since then life has been a wilful act of forgetting the past.Wanda tells Anna quite matter-of-factly that she’s not Anna but Ida — Ida Lebenstein, a Jew, not the good Catholic Anna thinks she is. But Wanda doesn’t want to discuss details of it. Anna’s parents were murdered. The young son of Wanda as well. They died together. Anna was spared, given to a priest who passed her along to the sisters at the convent orphanage. Anna goes away after this cold reception. She will go to the bus station and take a bus to the village where she and her parents once lived. But before she departs the station Aunt Wanda appears. Out of remorse or pity Wanda has had a change of heart. She and Anna travel in Wanda’s old car to the village. Their detective work into the past begins there.Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker, a young musician named Lis. He is on his way to a nearby town to meet his band who will play for a dance in a local hotel. He plays the alto sax. Four others in the band are these: a guitarist, pianist, drummer and female singer. Lis and his music will have a profound effect on Anna she didn’t see coming.Lis is a lover of Coltrane and jazz. Jazz is the siren song of sin, music made through a sensual and sexual pact with the Devil. Its freedom invites chaos and anarchy; its temptations doom those who embrace it. This is the conservative view.But there’s another view, open and free form, jazz seen as redemption, an invitation to live, and to do it expressively, passionately. Jazz says it’s O.K. to sin, to give way to carnal desires. In fact, to not do it is to truly sin, abstinence a form of death in life. Unlike most humans, the jazzman is alive, deeply rooted in the moment. Like God, he is a creator, his music bringing life into the world. A conceit, surely, but one that feels true in the moment of rapture when the music becomes transcendent.Anna will be mesmerised by it and Lis.Aunt Wanda goes to the dance. It’s in a downstairs restaurant at the hotel where she and Anna are staying. She drinks, smokes, flirts, dances, kisses a stranger at the bar. She is what’s known as a loose woman. She was once respectable, whatever that means. She was a judge and public prosecutor who sent men to their deaths after the war. But now she looks back cynically at that time. Now she seeks oblivion in causal sex and stimulants, a haze of incoherence glossing over the ugliness of the world. The dichotomy is thus made explicit: Anna saint, Wanda sinner. Yet complexity of character forms the beauty of the film (or one of its beauties), not simplicity. On this journey of discovery both Anna and Wanda will change.The opening scenes of the film show Anna at the convent painting the face of Christ with a small brush. The Saviour is a plaster statue made by the nuns and he will be carried by them into the snowy courtyard of the convent and placed on a pedestal, not a cross. Like the Redeemer in Rio, he will stand tall and bless the world.Where does her artistic talent come from? It comes from her mother. Anna learns this from Wanda. Her mother once made a beautiful stained glass window for the cowshed on their farm. It served no reasonable purpose. The cows could not appreciate its beauty. But her sister, Anna’s mother, said it would make them happy whether they thought about it or not. Beauty is like that somehow. It stirs something inside that makes us notice the happy way the world can look. We needn’t think anything. Just feel. Were the cows sentient beings too? Did they feel something special? Anna’s mother thought they did.Christ’s face, beauty, faith, redemption. Somehow these are connected for Anna. Add to it jazz and sensuality. If she is to take her vows, they will come only after she explores more of herself and the nature of the world. Music for her will open that door.The film was shot in monochrome, not colour. Normally the world is like a rainbow because the colours in it blend together. Black-and-white is different, the edges sharp, the divide between each clean. It’s why black-and-white looks so stark. Everything is clear, stands out. It is chaste and austere too, the world drained of colour. No coincidence as well, perhaps, that nuns dress in black and white, life reduced to a raw simplicity where choices are easier to see and make.There is much on the journey of Anna and Wanda that can be described. But it’s better here to say less. The film is what matters, not a review of it. However, I will say it’s extraordinary. It has the look and feel of a classic. Think Bergman, Bresson, Dreyer. The film has won several awards, including an Academy Award, and was voted no. 55 on a list of the best films of the 21st century by 177 film critics around the world. At only 80 minutes it may feel too short, but through expert editing the film is dense with images, impressions, emotions. A mature work of art from a director (Pawel Pawlikowski) at the peak of his powers. Five stars is the Amazon limit, but in truth it deserves more.

What i best remember from 'Ida', ... the Beautiful - 4:3 - black & white photography - credited to both Polish cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski & Lukasz Zal.I can't remember any other film where every scene, every new moment, was so delicately expressed with light and composition.'Ida', like writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski's other film 'Cold War', is a story where the main characters depart from their home place, leaving their roots to what looks like a new, fascinating outside world with more freedom. By the end however they must balance the pro's and cons of this new world against the importance of where they come from.Grown up and raised as an orphan in a Catholic convent, destined to become a nun, Anna (or Ida, and why that is you must find out in the movie) is advised by her mother superior to vist a recently discovered aunt. On this trip she explores and discovers the outside 'free' world and some new facts about herself. At the end she must decide where she belongs and who she really is.In his other film, 'Cold War' this theme is almost worked out the same but then between Soviet East and Kapitalist West. The way he thinks about the differences of these two cold war countries is shown in one of the most beautiful cinematographic moments i have ever seen on screen.Both films were discovered and praised by the academy and Ida won the oscar for best foreign film. Cold War was nominated with more than a few but did not win any. Made with 5 years in between, both movies could form a twin.Reading fragments of Biography from the writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski it is clear both films are based or inspired on his own life experience. He grew up a Catholic but discovered his grandparents were Jewish: Ida. He grew up - childhood anyway - in Soviet East Poland but lived and worked most until now in England - the Kapitalist West: Cold War.Both films are technically well done on Blu Ray by Artificial Eye (... almost wrote, Intelligence), a label worth checking out for more titles, same as MUBI they 'handpick' a certain style of lesser known beautiful gems and are mostly very well priced.

So there's this nun, and her Mother Superior tells her to go and find her self.Yeah, I know it starts like Sounds of Music, but that's where the resemblance ends.Ida goes and finds her only living relative, her mother's sister, only to find out, that her parents were Jews.That's how it starts, and I'll tell you no more.It's not one of the movies, that will warm your heart, but it's not a movie that's easily forgotten.So I would recommend this movie, if you feel like watching "something else".

This review is for the region A blu-ray issued by Music Box Films.A perfect film made even better by sensitive use of subtitle placement, exactly as seen in the theatrical release. So, for everyone who is hesitating over the Artificial Eye disc because of the numerous complaints over some of the poorly-placed subtitles, this is the one to go for. There are a few short but interesting extras too. However, here in the UK, you will need a multi-region blu-ray player to view it.

I bought this DVD for a friend. It arrived safely and in excellent condition.The sub titles are not easy to turn on, but as many others have noted there is little dialogue anyway. It is best described as bleak but beautiful, giving much to think about once seen. For a real understanding of what the director was trying to do, Google his acceptance speech of the Oscar received for the film.Be warned that the accompanying booklet to this DVD has no English translation.