THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
There have always been an array of movies that move people differently in ways people wouldn't imagine. A good example would be Ida.
PLOT
The film takes place in 1960s Polish People's Republic and follows an orphaned nun named Anna, who is soon to complete her final vows. Before she chooses to move forward, she is told by her prioress that she has an aunt, a judge named Wanda Gruz. She goes to Warsaw to meet her and know more of her family. Wanda shares that her birth name was Ida Lebenstein and her parents were Jews murdered during WWII in the German occupation of Poland. Since Ida was an infant at the time, she was taken in by the convent. Wanda was not able to adopt her than because she was a communist resistance fighter against the German occupation, along with being a state prosecutor. Knowing this, Ida wants to see the grave of her parents. The problem is that her aunt has no idea where they were buried. In order to trace steps that can take them there, they first go to the home was born in. They find it to be owned by Christian farmer Feliks Skiba (Adam Szyszkowski), During the war, his family took over the home and land, while hiding the Lebensteins from German authorities. Wanda wants to see his father Szymon (Jerzy Trela) because she believes he has an answer what happened to Ida's parents. Sadly for Feliks, his father is close to death at a hospital. They do see him and he speaks well of the Lebensteins, but nothing else. Wanda does reveal to Ida that she had a son and put him in the care of her parents before she fought in the Polish Resistance. Because he died in their care, she is determined to find the truth of what happened. Feliks agrees to take them to see the bodies if they leave his father alone and not make any claim towards the home. He takes them to the woods and digs up their bones. He admits that it was he who killed them, rather than having become German prisoners. He spared Ida because due to her infancy, she passed as believable to be Catholic. They than take their remains to a Jewish cemetery in Lublin and bury them there. After this, Ida and Wanda go their separate ways. After Wanda commits suicide by jumping off the roof of her home, Ida chooses to delay her final vows, in attempt to explore like her aunt did. She tries out her clothes, along with drinking and smoking for the first time. She than encounters the saxophone player Lis (Dawid Ogrodnik), who she met during her original journey. He teaches her to dance and they have sex afterwards. Although he offers to have the life of a family, she turns him down and the film ends with her returning to the convent and take her vows.
THOUGHTS
I never heard of this movie until it was assigned for me to see in a film class for my community college. So I had some kind of excitement on checking out a movie I've never heard of. Now that I got to it, I was surprised on how much I enjoyed it. This one struck me because of the simple message that struck me by director Pawel Pawlikowski: Explore your life before settling down to commitments. There is nothing wrong with investing yourself in a strict religion but I believe that before one does so, it is recommended to explore the world because you may not ever get a chance to do it afterwards. Throughout, there were so many things that I loved which made me appreciate the film much more, making me see why it earns its Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar. The various frames that consist of medium and long shots create a habituated feeling of being alone. Because of this, each frame helped make the composition become a powerful tool to tell the story. The lighting appears soft enough to create a tonal balance. And the emotional resonance is built off of both leads as they share this journey. Agata Kulesza gives a raw performance as the titular lead. Despite being taken in by a convent, she always felt alone. And after discovering her bloodline, she wasn't sure how to react because she remained in the same habit she learned in the only home she grew up in. We respect her because of how she doesn't deny who she was and respectably buries her family's remains in a Jewish cemetery. While she chose to complete her vows, her decision to stall in order to explore the world was wise of her because she knew her religion would never allow it. Since she walked her way back to the convent after doing what she wanted for the first time in her life, I do hope that she is at peace with herself. Her polar opposite is her Aunt Wanda, played excellently by Agata Trzebuchowska. She is an open minded person that is also chain smoking, hard drinking and sexually promiscuous. These habits come from her own set of grief that is the loss of her son. Finding the remains of him and her sister increased her melancholy. While I never condone suicide, I won't deny that I understand the reasoning. What can be appreciated of her is that she is the only one to tell her to try other things before the final vows. Without her, her niece's life would've appeared boring in some form. In short, Ida is an incredible film for the valuable lessons we're taught from. If you like those kind of movies, this is the one for you.
If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
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