Review: Ida, all perfectly black and white

Ida

Starring: Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza
Directed by: Pawel Palikowski

Written by: Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Pawel Pawlikowski

82 Minutes   Rated M

I don’t dream in black and white (seriously, does anyone? Come on…) I don’t often take photos in black and white and my TV gives me beautiful color, even HD programs. Occasionally though some arty could will make a movie in black and white, aren’t they clever little things?

One thing a black and white film can suggest very well though is austerity and this is certainly true of the Polish movie ‘Ida’ beautifully directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. You could be forgiven for thinking it is a film made in another era altogether with a boxy aspect ratio added to the monochromatic film stock.

Anna is a young novitiate in a rural convent where she grew up as an orphan. One day in 1962 her Mother Superior lets her know she has an Aunt Wanda living in Gdansk and orders Anna to make contact with her aunt before she takes her vows. Obediently Anna hops off to Gdansk and is greeted by Wanda who answers the door puffing on a cigarette in the afterglow of a one night stand (he’s quickly dressing in the bedroom).

We find out that Wanda is a formerly highly respected jurist who takes an interest in Anna leading them to spend a few days together, travelling to their family’s former home and retracing footsteps and unpacking dramas and events that were Poland’s (and the family’s) lot during the second World War. The village and the family’s home are wonderfully rendered, you’ll be reaching for the shawl or jacket to fight the chill and the bleakness so permeating is the atmosphere. Post war and post communism, the twin curses of Poland combine with a family weighed down with personal and political histories, crushing and oppressive to fill out this tale. Here we have a soon to be nun seeking out the stories where Catholics turned in or saved Jews, their neighbours and where citizens collaborated or resisted the Stalinists in their purges. The populace doesn’t yield but presents its face in the face of Wanda, unbending and hard bitten but tenacious and tough yet is there culpability somewhere under all that? Whichever, she will not tailor her behaviour to suit the prim Anna, a façade also and one that is challenged as the story develops. Without giving anything away, there is an eventual meeting of minds (fusing even), beautiful and a touch shocking.

Agata Trzebuchowska makes her debut as Anna; fresh faced and innocent she is captivating and frankly surprisingly accomplished and assured, a joy to watch. She is ably matched by the more experienced and riveting Agata Kulesza as Aunt Wanda.

This ‘kind of’ road film poses some tough questions about morality and all the contradictions inherent in them.  There is the inevitable Protestant fantasy that dictates that every nun will have a conflict with their vocation and their ‘bodily desires’ (good grief) but also much more realistic and important issues. Temper this with the cool and silky soundtrack featuring John Coltrane (much more successful than the grating, whiny soundtrack of ‘Birdman’), which feels it’s as grey in tone as the film’s palette, and you have a delicious, disturbing and masterly film

Ida deservedly won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. As more films emerge from the former Eastern Bloc to tell us the ordinary stories as well as the epic, who knows what other masters, poetic and sensitive, smart and brave will join Pawlikowski as Directors and storytellers to follow. Let’s just look forward to it.

4 out of 5

This review is dedicated to ‘my’ Ida – my Aunt Ida May Margetts who passed away last year.