Ida

Greetings again from the darkness. Writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski films in his homeland of Poland and presents a familiar topic from a most unusual perspective. This film has been very well received on the festival circuit and it's easy to see why: it's beautifully photographed, very well acted, includes terrific music and presents an emotional story for intelligent viewers.

We first meet Anna as a novitiate nun on the verge of taking her vows. Her Mother Superior has one requirement. Anna must visit her lone surviving relative. Her Aunt Wanda is everything Anna is not: worldly, cynical, direct. In the first few minutes of their visit, Wanda (Agata Kulesza) informs Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) that she was born Jewish with the name Ida, and she was sent to a Catholic orphanage when her parents were killed.

After this bombshell, the two set out on a journey to discover the truth and trace their roots. It's a journey of discovery not just for Ida, but also for Wanda, who carries her own burden. Questioning one's faith and one's true identity is nothing new, but this makes for quite an unusual buddy road trip. Wanda is rarely without a drink in hand and Ida has had no previous exposure to the real world.

This is the debut of Agata Trzebuchowska and her porcelain look and big eyes convey a quality with which we find ourselves comfortable with, while Ms. Kulesza evokes empathy from the viewer despite her harsh edge and beaten down outlook on life and people. Hers is a standout performance.

Two exceptional pieces of music are used to perfection: Coltraine's "Naima" and Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony. The storytelling and look of the film might be austere (stunning black and white photography) but this music hits us hard in two separate scenes.

Whereas Jacques Rivette's despairing 'La Religieuse' had been shot in incongruously pretty sixties Eastmancolor, this laconic but wryly good-humoured female road movie - like Ingmar Bergman's Persona' - gains much of it's seductive visual impact from being shot in coolly glacial monochrome that looks like what you'd have got if Vermeer had worked in charcoal.

Similarly, like the Scandinavian good looks of Liv Ullman and Bibi Andersson in Bergman's film, 'Ida' is fascinating to watch throughout simply for the strong Polish features of Agata Kulesza as the chain-smoking 'Red Wanda' and the button eyes of Agata Trzebuchowska in the title role.

Ida was a dark somber tragic story expressed perfectly in film.

I am not a big fan of black and white "art" movies done for effect, except the old black and white movies, but Ida was filmed so perfectly, and the stark black and white was so integral to the story and feeling of the movie it was really perfect.

I am not a big fan of jazz either, but again, the choice of Coltrane's jazz music for parts of this film really let you feel what jazz is all about, it was beautiful.

The story was of an orphan nun who is preparing to take her final vows to God. The Mother Superior calls her in and tells her about who she is. Ida grew up not knowing her name or anything about her family. Ida finds that she has an aunt nearby and is told to go to see her before taking her vows.

The slow, heavy and deliberate pace of the movie express the story so perfectly, and there is no pandering or cheap shots, the movie is beautifully done. This is a story that is not for everyone, or every time, but I am glad it was made and that I saw it.

I have to give it a 10/10 for pure craftsmanship and cinematic perfection.

Ida is the small and simple story of a complex and terrible past that gets unearthed when a nun discovers she is Jewish. Before taking her vows, she is sent out to meet her aunt, a bitter woman who drinks too much from the life and miserable aftermath of a Nazi occupied Poland. They journey in search of Ida's murdered parents and their resting place and what unfolds is simple, raw storytelling and plotting that is never overly grim, overly dramatic or hits a false note. Beautifully shot in black and white and with a short 80 minute running time that doesn't allow a moment of fat in this narrative, Ida is a rewarding experience.

Ida is magnificent, it will stay with me a long time. The narrative is powerfully compelling and yet if it had been a non-narrative film I would have been spellbound by the images alone. They should make a coffee table book of stills from it. Huge emotional issues are dealt with in a remarkably understated, unsentimental, but appropriate way. The use of music (often my pet peeve in these days of Hollywood formula) is enlightened and illustrative. I don't think the ending is ambiguous, I'm not sure the writer who wrote that understood it. Perhaps there is something slightly facile about the way things wrap up in the last 15 minutes of the film, but this is only in comparison with how beautifully they are laid out before that. Enough, this is not really a review, it is an exhortation - Go see Ida!