Ida (2013) User Reviews (169)

Saint Ida

[jadepietro · 8/10 · 23 June 2014]

This film is recommended.

Anna grew up in a Catholic orphanage, never knowing her parents. Deeply religious, she is slated to become a nun within a few weeks. However, before taking her vows, Anna must leave the convent and visit her only living relative, a cold and distant aunt. Upon their first meeting, she is told that she is really Ida, a Jewish niece. So begins their relationship and journey to find her past and specifically, her parent's unmarked graves.

With an unusually short film length of less than 90 minutes, Ida is an extremely well made film, sensitively directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Under the backdrop of 1960's Poland, the film's premise of presenting contrasting religions and lifestyles is its main attraction. The screenplay by the director and Rebecca Lenkiewicz has much to say and tells its linear narrative concisely and without any flourish.  Ida is a fine film that could have been a great film had its script added more dimension to its central character. Anna, or Ida, is mainly a saintly conduit, a devout presence who never seems to be real in any sense. She begins as an enigma and, surprisingly, rarely displays any strong emotional reaction when confronted with disturbing news.

Agata Trzebuchowska plays Ida / Anna and she is physically right for the role. The actress invests the right degree of innocence and vulnerability. Even more effective is Agata Kulesza as Ida's bitter and alcoholic Aunt Wanda. Her role has far more depth and the actress makes subtle choices in underplaying the anger and hostility within her complex character. It is a strong and memorable performance.

The film, beautifully photographed by Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, might have a smaller budget than most movies these days, but one never notices any lapse in quality as production values are of the highest caliber. With lovely black & white images and a lyrical score by Kristian Eidnes Andersen, Ida is superior filmmaking, even if some of the transitions and editing seems slightly abrupt. The film effectively deals with powerful themes that will resonate with any serious film-goer and deserves to be seen. GRADE: B

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The Not so Usual. Life.

[ferguson-6 · 8/10 · 29 June 2014]

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.

Enticing, but the ending is disappointing

[Andy-296 · 8/10 · 10 April 2014]

Poland, 1962. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a novitiate in a convent, is told by her mother superior that she must meet her only living relative before she takes her vows. So the pretty but shy soon to be nun ventures from her convent with a broken, beaten up suitcase held together by a belt. When she arrives at her Aunt Wanda's apartment, she's greeted by a woman in her forties smoking a cigarette and wearing a bathrobe, her hair disheveled, while a man gets dressed in the background. Thus the film highlights the contrast between the sheltered Anna and her cynical, hard drinking, sexually promiscuous aunt. And right after meeting for the first time, Wanda tells Anna bluntly that she is Jewish by birth. Anna, it turns out, was born Ida Lebenstein, but having grown up in an orphanage, has no memory of her family and no idea that she is Jewish. Wanda doesn't know exactly what became of Anna's/Ida's family but assumes that they were murdered by their farming neighbors.

Eventually we will also learn more about Wanda's past. In the 1950s she was a famous prosecutor, known as Red Wanda for having sent "enemies of the people" to the firing squads. But in the present, De-Stalinization has hit Poland, she is minor magistrate, politically marginalized. Anna and Wanda decide to take a road trip to find out what happened to Ida's parents. Along the way they pick up a handsome hitchhiking musician (Dawid Ogrodnik). Eventually, aunt and niece will learn the terrible fate of their family.

The movie is enticing for most of the times, but the end (without revealing a lot of it) is quite unsatisfying. What the audience wants to know is whether, after the terrible revelations, Ida will leave or not her religious life. The director (SPOILERS AHEAD) takes the easiest choice: basically he gives us two endings with the two possibilities. As Wanda, Agata Kulesza dominates the screen, while director Pawel Pawlikowski deliberately keeps Anna/Ida under wraps as an enigma. Pawlikowski has some questionable artsy tendencies as a director, like using takes that are longer than needed or having the camera close up for several seconds on a character as he or she does nothing. And there are several unexplained bits in the movie, like why aunt Wanda didn't adopt Ida when she was a child, a time when Wanda was a very successful official. The stark black-and-white photography is a plus.

Stunning pictures, mind-blowing camera work. And then, the Aunt.

[joaophilippe-mb-monteiro · 9/10 · 19 April 2014]

While French artsy-critic magazine "telerama" gave it an ecstatic review, there is one thing I wasn't prepared for: the quality of the images. Set in an almost-but-not-quite faded black and white, of about completely square format, I was sure the movie, set and shot in Poland, was using some obscure last reels of some obscure special negatives, developed in a forgotten cold-war era lab... Well, according to the credits, that was all digital, from start to finish. All the haters of DDD processes out there (I'm one of them), we can now be assured the modern film-maker has today the ability to really work on grain, under-exposure, blurred shadows and all that; Wiene, Murneau, Dreyer, Eisenstein and Lang be damned.

I was stunned. This, and the quite audacious camera angles, the ever so close close-ups that only half a face remains visible. I even noticed what should be considered an error (walking in the forest, you only see the characters up from their ankles, missing their feet labouring trough the undergrowth)... And it just works because of the richness of the various tree trunk's winter greys.

Add to that the settings, the aesthetics of semi-derelict post-war communist décor, and the odd 'innocent girl meets nice boy' arch-cute scene, but that was to be expected from the start, even if it is just about perfect. The Hotel is... A graphic masterpiece in itself.

So yeah, the movie is worth it's weight on that alone already, and then there is Agata Kulesza, so absolutely right every part of her role as Aunt Wanda, so whole and complex inside a movie that doesn't otherwise spend lengths on character's backgrounds that she just draws you inside, whether you know her story, her past, her issues or not. A jaw-dropping performance.

This movie should not be called Ida, but Wanda.

As moving as sad

[FrenchEddieFelson · 9/10 · 9 May 2019]

In the 60's Poland, a few days before pronouncing her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to end her probation period and officially become a nun, Anna, an orphaned young woman, learns by chance the existence of her aunt, Wanda. The Mother Superior propose to Anna to meet Wanda. In this respect, she offers her to take all the necessary time. This encounter will turn her life upside down, via a journey of self-discovery and a road trip through rural Poland, in search of lost time. Lost forever...

Shot in gorgeous black and white, this film is a disconcerting beauty while remaining simple and pure, with a neat photography, elegant and appropriate framings highlighting the emptiness and the sadness of certain existences, and a careful treatment of natural light. Then, the two main actresses, Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska, are prodigious and complement each other wonderfully. Finally, the script is excellently and soberly written, and, even if the film is hard and deals with an unpleasant subject, the staging is simple and anything but egghead. As a synthesis, the film is a masterpiece.

Amazing movie, amazing technique, acting, music, and story

[bruce-129 · 24 May 2014]

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.

Worthwhile, but overrated

[barkingechoacrosswaves · 6/10 · 4 July 2014]

A thundering herd of critics and viewers have wildly applauded the beauties and virtues of the movie "Ida." With so much rapture being expressed with such intensity from so many people it is daunting to offer the slightest criticism of this movie. Nonetheless, I will perform the very under-appreciated service of giving "Ida" a balanced review.

On the plus side, the cinematography is lovely. Shot in austere black and white, impeccably framed and endlessly atmospheric, the movie is a visual marvel. The stark simplicity of the images complements perfectly both the subject matter and the locations chosen for the film.

The acting is generally good, with Agata Kulesza's magnificent portrayal of Ida's aunt taking top honors here. Ms. Kulesza's exploration of a woman sliding quickly into multiple forms of self abuse -- most notably alcoholism, soulless promiscuity and depression -- is extremely compelling and provides the principal reason to see this movie. Haunted by the past (the Holocaust, in particular) and unable to live with the present, Kulesza's tortured character is luminously dark, dark, dark.

Much less felicitous, in my opinion, is Agata Trzebuchowska's portrayal of the lead character, Ida. How hard is it, I wonder, to act repressed, timid and holier-than-thou, to look down at the floor and away from other people, in scene after scene? Ms. Trzebuchowska plays her part well but my point would be that her part lacks depth and nuance; as a result, Trzebuchowska's acting comes across as rather rote and predictable. Not bad acting, mind you, but hardly deserving of the ecstatic praise that has been heaped upon it.

The story is fine so long as it revolves around the interactions between the worldly, depraved and depressed Aunt and her virtuous, repressed niece-nun. The various scenes in the convent where Ida usually resides are also deftly handled with all of the restraint they require. But in the last quarter of the film when Ida takes a flier on all sorts of depravities better suited to her infamous aunt the whole enterprise starts to go off the rails. There's a switch from "virtue" to "vice" and then back again, apparently, to "virtue" that seems simultaneously pointless and predictable. We have no warning that Ida is going to take this walk on the wild side but, despite the lack of warning, it seems obvious when it happens.

So to conclude, there is much to admire in this movie and it is certainly worth seeing and supporting. But to suggest that "Ida" is the cinematographic equivalent of Nirvana, as so many reviewers have done, is to inflate the accomplishments of the director, screenwriter and actors well beyond their actual scope. It's a movie that could have been great but that somehow couldn't bear to steer clear of conventional devices to move the plot along. By putting sex and death scenes in a film that actually demanded their exclusion, the screenwriter greatly compromised an otherwise promising work. Too bad, but there it is...

Phenomenal

[ned-1-566995 · 10/10 · 15 May 2014]

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!

Straightforward, beautifully shot and very rewarding

[TheMarwood · 7/10 · 17 December 2014]

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.

Extraordinary film. Don't miss it!

[Red-125 · 10/10 · 13 June 2014]

Ida (2013) is a Polish film co-written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. This brilliant film follows a few days in the life of Anna, a young novitiate nun. Anna has been raised in a convent, and she plans to take her vows and stay in the convent for the rest of her life.

However, before this can take place, the mother superior sends her to meet her only living relative, a woman named Wanda.

The pair could not be less similar. Ida is quiet, gentle, thoughtful, and shy. Her aunt is tough as nails--she has real power as a judge, and she knows how to use it. She's a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker. She's also a Jew.

In the first few minutes of the movie, Anna learns that she's Jewish. As a very young girl, she was taken to the convent, where the nuns raised her. (Her real name is Ida, which is why that's the title of the film.)

Wanda and Anna set out to return to their rural home, to solve the mystery of what happened to their family 20 years earlier. Why did Ida survive, when her family--other than Wanda--did not?

This film, shot in black & white, is superbly constructed on every dimension. The plot is tight, and the acting is incredible. Agata Kulesza (Wanda) and Agata Trzebuchowska (Anna/Ida), are immensely talented actors.

The cinematography is incomparable. My wife and I felt as if any frame--from the beginning to the end of the movie--would make a great still photograph.

Pawlikowski knows how to focus on his main actors, but he also lets us know that, while the protagonists are involved in heartbreaking drama, the rest of the world is going about its business around them.

This is a grim film. Anna's life is restricted by her piety. Wanda's life is constricted by alcohol and--it would appear--by lack of any close personal relationships. Everyone in Poland is restricted by horrible memories, dark secrets, and Soviet domination.

Grim or not, this is a film you shouldn't pass up if you care about great cinema. We saw it on a large screen at the LittleTheatre in Rochester, NY. However, it will work well enough on DVD. Don't miss it.

Here's an idea. let's use every off-the-shelf Oscar bait and put them all in one movie

[majd_selbi · 6/10 · 14 February 2015]

Don't be insulted, it's a nice movie, it's shot and designed very well, characters are nicely written, actors are beautiful, and the script is well constructed. So what's the issue, exactly this review's title, from my perspective, it seems that the filmmakers wanted an Oscar so bad (I don't blame them, who doesn't) that they just used every element they could fit into this story that is known to give a movie better chance at winning. It's about a young orphan novitiate nun who is about to take her vows when suddenly she discovers that she is descended of a Jewish family that was murdered by the Nazis, and during the same journey she starts to have feelings towards a Jazz musician and begins to doubt whether being a nun is really the path she wants. Both elements are severely overplayed, and both are elements are the very foundation of this movie. I cannot but think that Ida was not made so that the filmmaker deliver to us a vision that he wants to share, but instead was designed specifically to allure to film festivals and awards committees.

Will definitely be a front runner for 2014 Best Foreign Picture Oscar nominations

[dimoulas-466-176153 · 10/10 · 12 May 2014]

I knew that I was going to love Ida from the opening shot. It is a shot of the beautiful Ida, the main character played by Agata Trzebuchowska, at the bottom left of the screen, outside surrounding her in the frame is the depressing back drop of post World War II, 1960s Poland. Let's forget for a moment the fact that every single shot in Ida looks like a beautiful portrait, the shot also wonderfully sets up the tone for the rest of the film.

Ida is a nun who is about to take her final vows when she finds out that she is actually Jewish and that her parents hid her at a nunnery at the end of the war. Ida then meets her aunt and goes across the country, experiencing life outside of the church and trying to find out where her Jewish parents are buried. Both the actresses who play Ida and her aunt, Wanda, are incredible. Agata Trzebuchowska plays Ida with such fragility and innocence while Agata Kulesza, who plays Wanda, plays her character as a woman who has been beaten down by life, and as a result has become an alcoholic.

The rest of the performances in the film reflect the state of mind of Poland during that time period. I would imagine that some people may find the style of this movie bleak, but that is always the point. There is one moment when the film has some levity and it is in a scene when Ida is back at the nunnery after being out in the world. All of the nuns are eating dinner very somberly, and Ida lets out a bit of a giggle. It is after she has experienced new things, and she now realizes that maybe she doesn't want to be a nun. There is never any dialogue to suggest that she is thinking this, it is done visually in the scene.

The language of this film is very visual. Even though it is in Polish, the dialogue isn't very vital. Director Pawel Pawlikowski has patience with the shots and with the editing. There is a scene shot in a wide shot where Ida and her aunt, Wanda, are talking about where her parents might be. Eventually, Wanda leaves the shot. Most films would cut away with Wanda and follow her to where she is going, but the shot stays on Ida. It visually shows her as an orphan, she has nobody, except this aunt, whom she has only just met.

The ending of Ida is probably one of the most satisfying I've ever seen. As an audience member watching this movie you want certain conclusions for her character, without giving away any of the plot. Pawel Pawlikowski is a smart director to only answer a few, but leave some questions open for interpretation. But in the end, we know Ida has changed, and she is going to go out there and live her life. I think this film will definitely be a front runner for next years Oscars in the Best Foreign Picture category.

Different Standpoints, One Story

[marcin_kukuczka · 6/10 · 22 March 2015]

Since many of the movies that touched the subject of the extermination of the Jews during the 1930s and 1940s appeared rather too general, epic proportion films, it seems that something like IDA by Pawel Pawlikowski is a wonderful chance to symbolize a modern approach to the material. It is one great DETAIL, a story of one character where "every moment feels intensely personal" (Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian). A very interesting protagonist tormented by suggestion, suspicion and indication. Yet, does the protagonist instill any understanding in us?

Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), or rather Ida Lebenstein, is a young 'nun' in the early 1960s Poland who has a chance to leave to the world just for a while before the time comes for the final vows. There, in the convent, within the context of the Benedictine maxim 'Ora Et Labora' (Pray and work) and the statue of the Merciful Jesus, we get to know our protagonist. A very fruitful theme that echoes many of the old Hollywood pictures, including NUN'S STORY. Yet, Anna's leave to the world does not have anything to do with a dilemma whether forgive or not nor with a sort of 'climb every mountain' attitude but she leaves in order to dig in the past, to find the grave of her roots, find out who she really is. In other words, she makes a dramatic discovery of her ancestry. But the help in that journey appears to be quite a sympathetic, earthly easy-going joys' Mary Magdalene-like character of Wanda (Agata Kulesza) and a young saxophonist (Dawid Ogrodnik) who introduces her to the joys of...carnal pleasures. Yes, indeed, she must know those pleasures in order to understand later what she actually resigns from by entering the convent. Jim O'Neill nicely puts it with reference to Ida's character that it is an altogether a "search for identity and truth in a world that suppressed both."

So far, it would make a perfect sense and a lovely inspiration for a drama if it were not for the problem of where the truth lies. Forgive me to become slightly ignorant now or politically incorrect but there is NO historical truth in this movie whatsoever. I am not one of those who blame the movie for being anti-Polish, not at all. While the convent aspect occurs to combine the Jewish world with the Catholic world quite successfully, the later story seems to draw even greater borderline between the Jewish nation and the Polish nation. It could have happened that there were some Polish people who killed the Jews while many many others risked their lives to save them. IDA does not do justice to the nation but, after all, the movie does not intend to do so. A little film can do little good but, at the same time, much evil. The problem lies in the fact that many viewers will be misled by what the argument revolves around. Why did they kill the Lebenstein family and buried them in the forest? Was it because of jealousy? Was it because of greed? (the son in one of the scenes says openly that he will show Ida and Wanda the spot where they are buried on the condition they resign from the property he lives in). Open for discussion and quite thought provoking...but for those who give themselves time and check some history, become intellectually involved not merely resorting to emotions. Others will simply resort to minimalism of the view of what allegedly happened in Poland. Here, as a Pole and Polish patriot I admit that I feel disappointed. More to say, the depiction of Poland is merely shards of old past, long forgotten and ruins. The spots Ida visits are either ruined filthy districts or totally neglected, primitive villages. Come on, that is not the way Poland looked like in the 1960s in spite of the fact that we were being poisoned by the red plague from the east.

But it would be unfair not to see the merits of the film. While many film scholars mention the intense portrayals of Ida and Wanda, I agree but...I would highlight the visual aspect more. Starting with the fact that the film is black and white (which Jim O'Neill labels as "images" looking like "vintage photographs") the camera-work is brilliant. Heavily influenced on cinema's long tradition and revealing certain features of even silent cinema and Expressionism (consider the shadows, the shots of staircase), it is an artistic picture, no doubt of that. I particularly liked the scenes at the convent that seem to grasp the specific atmosphere of the spiritually affected places. The delicacy of the love scene later in the movie also deserves credit. The classical music of Bach supplies the film with additional charm. And the characters?

Wanda and Ida seem to differ a lot from the very first meeting. While Ida is a totally inexperienced character who simply seeks to discover her own identity, Wanda is a woman with a past, a very very cruel past. As a state prosecutor and the one who sentenced many innocent people to death, she supplies the moments with either sarcastic irony or hardly believable metamorphosis. Inspired by the true historical character of Helena Wolinska-Brus, she leaves many questions unanswered. With her alcoholism and act of despair, she remains a rather character to be pitied and, more to say, compassionate. In that respect, I advise you to see GENERAL NIL. Yet, there is something that joins them: mutual Jewish ancestry. Both suffer and both occur innocent.

Relying on Peter Bradshaw's words that every moment in IDA is intensely personal, I recommend this film. From the standpoint of art and psychological torments, from the standpoint of one story, it is a captivating movie. Yet, we should not forget that there are also other standpoints, perhaps the ones that are not taken into account seriously bu surely the ones that cannot be ignored.

I wanted to like this film a lot more than I did.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 1 July 2014]

"Ida" is a film that I should have loved since the story idea was very, very strong. Yet, inexplicably, the film managed to lose me due to the zombie-like acting and the overall lack of energy. It's a darn shame--I really wanted to like this film.

The title character is a novice at a nunnery at around 1960 in Poland She's planning on becoming a full-fledged nun but has yet to take her final vows. However, before this ceremony can occur, the Reverend Mother calls her to her office. Although Ida was raised in an orphanage, it seems that she DOES have one family member--an aunt who refused to take her in when she needed a home. Now the head of the nunnery wants Ida to make contact with the aunt. This is an odd request--and it makes sense once she meets this lady. It turns out that the reason Ida was an orphan was that her parents were Jews and were murdered during the Holocaust...and this aunt is the only other survivor in the family. The aunt is a bit screwed up and drinks a lot, but the two manage to spend time getting to know each other. Then, they both go off on a trek to learn the fates of Ida's parents--something that others really don't want to discuss. After all, many of these folks had helped the Nazis track down the Jews or even killed them for the Nazis. During all this, Ida remains steadfast in her desire to become a nun...that is until very late in the film when she begins to act a bit inexplicably.

The film has one of the better story ideas I can recall about the Holocaust--mostly because it's so novel. However, the story managed to make very little of this due to the odd decision to have almost zero energy in the film. As for the actress playing Ida, I doubt if she spoke for more than about two minutes during the film and could be described almost as if she's sleepwalking throughout the picture. As for the aunt, she has some feeling but drowns it in booze--and her feelings, while present, are still very restrained--too restrained. The overall feeling of this under-emoting and stark black & white cinematography is underwhelming to say the least. This film SHOULD have been very hard-hitting and intense. Instead, it just limps to a conclusion that simply left me baffled. Not a terrible film by any means but one that left me disappointed and frustrated.

Black-and-White perfect choice for Ida

[rcashdan · 10/10 · 3 August 2014]

This b&w film is engraved in my memory.

The producer told her audience at the Guanajuato International Film Festival (Mexico) that finding funding for a b&w film took a long time. How wise she and the director were to hold out because b&w gives the film its period feel (the events occur 1961-62).

The story, occasionally too linear, is believable overall, at times all too believable. Its subtext: coming of age, Communism's excesses in Poland, peasant-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, worldliness vs. faith. And yes, they all work.

The aunt is played by a justly renowned Polish actress, the novice nun by an amateur who despite the film's success in Poland doesn't want to continue to act.

I don't want to spill over into spoilers, will sum up by saying that viewers will see a complex film simply told, set during Poland's painful post-war years and a no-holds-barred look at how various Poles treated Jews during the Second World War.

Ida played to large audiences in Poland where the film was generally praised, despite receiving flak from a few detractors as either anti-Polish or anti-Jewish, a fact reinforcing my view that the film owes part of its power to avoiding stereotypes. A compelling, technically excellent film worth the care lavished on it.

rare work

[Vincentiu · 26 June 2014]

simplicity, great photographs, splendid script. at first sigh, an old fashion movie. in fact, wise manner to use the legacy of impressive tradition and a great director who use, in same measure, with same precision, tension, poetry of images, atmosphere of period, cultural roots. it is a reflection occasion about origins, truth, faith and choices. a profound Polish story who reflects the identity search of an entire continent. it is , certainly, a rare gem. the cause is not only beauty of photography or admirable acting but a special flavor who remains after its end as a delicate feeling. a young woman and the courage to become here self. that is all. in skin of seductive music.

Quiet, and stunning

[EephusPitch · 9/10 · 28 May 2014]

This is one of those cinema experiences which inevitably lead me into complete incoherence. There is no way I can effectively quantify or qualify the feelings engendered by the film, so I'll just jot down some more or less random impressions:

This is, literally and figuratively, a very quiet movie. The themes are huge, but the presentation is never strident. The arguments are very calmly placed in front of us, there is no special pleading; and the score reflects this. There was a very slight, low frequency hum pervading one of the later reels in the print I saw at the Clay Theater, which was driving me slightly barmy: I can't remember the last movie I've seen in which I would have noticed it.

What we have here is one of those works of art which makes me want to revisit other works of art. The opening sequence, of novitiates carrying a sculpture of Jesus into a snow-filled courtyard, reminded me Anton Corbijn's photography for Joy Division's Closer album, and his cinematography of their "Atmosphere" video. At various points I made silent vows to listen to Coltrane's Giant Steps, reread Hesse's Narciss und Goldmund, and listen to Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, which, oddly enough, I woke up to this morning.

In Something Like an Autobiography, Akira Kurosawa expresses concern for the plight of Takashi Shimura, a wonderful actor, who Kurosawa felt was overshadowed by Toshiro Mifune in Drunken Angel. Something analogous occurred to me here: Agata Kulesza turns in a yeoman-like performance as the slightly jaded Wanda: but Agata Trzebuchowska absolutely seizes the camera, and never lets it go. She is just compulsively watchable.

And lastly, if I ever commit suicide, I will definitely be using the "Jupiter" Symphony as a soundtrack.

Nun the wiser.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 6/10 · 10 March 2020]

Although 'Ida (2013)' achieves a cold, isolating effect, it actually struggles quite a bit when it comes to thematic or emotional resonance. Its story, which ought to be wrought with emotion, doesn't really hit home. Perhaps that's because we feel at a distance from our core players despite always being in close proximity to them. Of course, there is something to be said for the flick's delicate exposition and otherwise subtle storytelling. It mostly works to an enigmatic effect. However, it's sometimes too subtle. Much of the lead's inner machinations are left up to interpretation, as she moves through the narrative with a blank face and only the simplest of dialogue. That's not to say that the film is particularly uninteresting. In fact, it's often rather intriguing. The issue is that it isn't all that engaging. Despite its great cinematography and understated camera-work, it isn't moving in any real way. It isn't so much boring as it is slow, though. I wish it was more captivating than it is, as it's a well-crafted movie with an under-explored setting, but it's worth a watch if you know what you're getting into. 6/10

The Nun's Story

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 4 August 2021]

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.

DA successfully mounts a much more dreadful picture of the loss of humanity in viewers' minds

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 29 August 2014]

With its technical specs like 1.33:1 aspect ratio and posh Black & White cinematography, Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski's fifth feature film IDA, gains an instant art house recognition albeit its pithy 82-minute running time.

Back to his homeland, Pawlikowski scrupulously traces back to the era of 1960s, contemplates the aftermath of WWII through a road trip of Ida (Trzebuchowska), a Jewish orphan who is scheduled to take her vows to become a nun, and her aunt Wanda (Kulesza) whom she has never met before and who is a damaged good herself and has been persisted in withholding the custody of Ida out of human nature.

Treading in the bonding process with the methodology of reticent verbal communication and aesthetically unconventional compositions, a plain journey to locate the graves of Ida's parents delves into a more soul-searching purgation for both women, especially for Wanda, whose tragic back-stories are brutally but implicitly unveiled, which ultimately overtakes her bearing capacity. Wanda is a more complicated character, she is the opposite of Ida, a middle-aged single woman who flirts casually and indulges herself with smoke and alcohol, she is a magistrate, once called "Red Hair Wanda" because she ruthlessly adjudged death penalty to a few war criminals, Kulesza is superb in bringing out both the wrath and tenderness within the character, "I can see through your lies", Wanda utters to the man who has committed horrible wrongdoings in the extreme times, she is devastated inside, but at the same time, she is fearless as well, her abrupt egress stands for one of the most shocking scenes in recent art cinema, its impact comes headstrong and poignant.

Most of the time, Ida is the sidekick of Wanda, an unobtrusive observer during their journey, but the horrific truth she gleans about her family gradually undermines her belief, after Wanda's accident, her short-term spree with secular pleasure unforcedly embodies the thin fine line between enlightened detachment and blind spirituality. Trzebuchowska is calculatedly composed in her acting debut, with the semblance of a meek girl under the guidance of Pawlikowski's less-is-more philosophy.

Pawlikowski is not seeking forgiveness or retribution with regards to the man-made horrors executed in WWII, the most applauding merit of IDA is its immense patience to let its characters to mull over their emotional spectra and decide their own destinies, nothing seems rushed or premeditated, yet in 82 minutes, IDA successfully mounts a much more dreadful picture of the loss of humanity in viewers' minds than its own austere but visually pleasing aesthetics, hope it will stand the test of time but as far as I am concerned, its sui generis modus operandi should be more treasured than the film per se.

Beautiful and Haunting

[oldblackdog1 · 10/10 · 22 May 2014]

The beautiful photography - in Ansel Adams shades of treys to blacks - and insistence created through pacing that you pause - come to a full stop -work for these two wonderful actresses and the subject matter. The director sets up the scene to that the viewer cannot avoid seeing the faces and the settings, and consider what is happening now and what happened in the past -

Like another reviewer, I came away wondering why wasn't it called "Wanda" - the aunt being one of the most complex characters you are likely to encounter in modern film. But Ida provides the open eyes

...who in the end incorporates at least some of her aunt's spirit ...

I wish the characters would have been developed more.

[Hellmant · 7/10 · 22 January 2015]

'IDA': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Polish drama flick about a nun, that's about to take her vows in 1960s Poland, who first learns a disturbing secret about her family's past. It was directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. It has received almost unanimously positive reviews from critics and garnered a great deal of prestigious awards attention as well (including Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography). The film has been negatively criticized by some though, for portraying Poles as anti-Jewish. I found the movie to be interesting and beautiful to watch but I wish the characters would have been developed more.

Agata Trzebuchowska stars as Anna; an orphan who was brought up by nuns in a convent, in the 1960s Polish People's Republic. She's a novice, about to take her vows, when her superior (Halina Skoczynska) tells her she must first meet her aunt, her only living relative, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza). Wanda is an alcoholic judge, who used to be a prosecutor responsible for sending many anti- communist Polish soldiers to their death. She tells Anna about her Jewish heritage and the two set out on a journey together, to learn more about their family's past. They both, of course, learn more about who they are now, in the process.

The movie is presented all in black-and-white and I strongly agree with it's Best Cinematography Oscar nomination. The acting is all decent and the story is compelling, but I wish it would have been developed at least a little more. We get to know the Wanda character pretty well but we hardly learn much about Anna at all, before the film is over. The movie is only 80 minutes long and it seems like it could have been so much more emotional, if we would have gotten to know both characters better. There was potential here for a really great film; but I think it's still worth viewing (for it's visuals alone).

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Offers no easy answers

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 4 July 2014]

Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young novice ready to take her vows, learns through her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) that she is of Jewish parentage and must come to terms with a past she never knew existed. Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida offers no easy answers but looks at each character's complexities, leaving only a trail of ambiguity. Shot in black and white by cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, the film is set in Poland in the early 1960s and masterfully captures the bleak look of Communist-controlled Eastern Europe where the physical and emotional scars of World War II are impossible to hide.

Before taking her vows, the Mother Superior asks Anna to go to Lodz to visit her Aunt Wanda, her only living family member, but the visit causes her to experience emotions she had never been forced to confront. When the slender, frail, saintly-looking younger woman meets her aunt for the first time, Wanda is dressed in a bathrobe, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, a shadow of the judge and former Communist prosecutor of "enemies of the state," who routinely sent people to their death. Leading Anna into the kitchen, Wanda blurts out with little subtlety. "So, you're a Jewish nun," telling her that her real name is Ida Lebenstein and that she was brought to the convent as an infant after her family was murdered by either the Nazis or the locals.

On the surface, Wanda is the sinner and Ida is the saint, but, as the film progresses, these distinctions become blurred and each is revealed as a multi-layered human being whose mysteries are not easily penetrated. When Ida asks to visit the grave where her parents are buried, Wanda tells her that "they have no graves," but both know that they must seek to find those responsible for the crimes. Wanda is aggressive as she tries to track down the guilty, but the search is more of a psychological journey to find closure than a desire for revenge. Along the way, Ida, an innocent motivated by faith, listens to the more experienced Wanda who tells her to live her life fully while she has the chance.

While it is difficult to know with any certainty what Ida thinks about the idea, she hesitatingly samples the secular life in a romantic relationship with Lis, a handsome saxophone player (Dawid Ogrodnick) who has a gig at their hotel, removing her habit and literally and figuratively letting her hair down. When Lis invites her to go to the beach with him, she asks, "What then?" When he replies, "Marriage and a family," she asks again, "Well, what then?" His answer is that we just go on to live our life, a notion that Ida seems to recoil from, but carefully guards her emotions.

Ida is a quiet film but masks the characters' inner torment. There is little dialogue but thanks to the direction and the strong but understated performances, especially from nonprofessional Trzebuchowska, the film becomes a hypnotic, if enigmatic experience. While Ida raises the question about whether or not it is best to live with comfortable illusions or seek an often painful truth, viewers are left to decide the answer for themselves.

Good in some aspects, but I was left indifferent to it.

[brianberta · 6/10 · 23 January 2023]

I didn't enjoy this film as much as I hoped to, but it's still pretty decent. I think a lot of my indifference towards it was that there wasn't enough to keep me on board with it. I've read some reviews which point out how Kulesza and Trzebuchowska show subtle changes as more insight about Ida's past is revealed, but while I don't doubt this is the case, acting usually doesn't matter a whole lot to me. I've said this in the past, but I'm generally not one who pays attention to acting, and it wasn't until the few minutes before Wanda's suicide where I began to feel something towards the acting. Of course, there are all kinds of tools a film can utilize other than acting to represent characters being shaped and changed, but aside from the final act, I didn't think there was a whole lot to this. So much time is spent on slowly revealing Ida's background and it wasn't until Ida and Wanda parted ways when their characters grew more interesting. Though yeah, the final act is pretty memorable, specifically due to Ida's arc. Even though I would've preferred it taking up more of the film, it's a compelling depiction of attempting to start a new life and being haunted by your past. The black and white cinematography is also lovely to look at since it contains multiple well-framed shots. In spite of enjoying the final act a good bit, however, I'd say this film was decent and I don't imagine it will stick with me. Interestingly enough, "My Summer of Love", the other film I've seen from Pawlikowski, gave me a similar reaction of not being on board with it until the final act. I'm curious now if this will be a pattern for his films.

Fails in getting the audience involved

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 15 September 2014]

This film was actually a truly big player at awards ceremonies all over the planet. It won honors in Germany, Spain, England, North America and Poland of course. At the Polish Film Awards it won Best Film, Actress (which actually went to the main character's aunt) and Director while scoring a few more nominations. Probably, as a result of that, it is also the Polish submission for the Foreign Language category at next year's Academy Awards. We will see how far it gets there.

We follow the paths of a young woman a few days before her vow, i.e. before becoming a nun. She's stuck between her faith and between temptation that lurks around the corner. And as if that wasn't enough already, she also finds out she is Jewish. As a consequence, she meets her Jewish aunt (a renowned judge before she retired) and the two make a road trip in order to find information about the main character's deceased parents. She meets a musician that she finds very attractive and the aunt isn't too uninterested in men either, gently speaking.

For Agata Trzebuchowska it is the very first role and she starts to prove that there is some acting talent behind that beautiful face. The director is Pawel Pawlikowski and this is only his second project roughly 10 years after the well-known "Summer of Love". After working with Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Paddy Considine and Emily Blunt, he is back to local productions in Poland.

However, I cannot say that i enjoyed this film a lot. It's all too bleak and uninteresting for my taste. None of the characters have you really feel with them and you don't hate them either. You just don't get involved really, which is the one of worst things that can happen. I usually like black-and-white films, but even with being considerably shorter than 90 minutes this film started to drag on several occasions. The ending is open. we see the main character walk away and it is unclear if she chooses the path of celibacy or away from the monastery. The aunt's death scene felt really awkward to me as she did not seem to be somebody who would commit suicide at all. It just did not fit in my opinion. Unfortunately there is too many criticisms which let me come to the final verdict that I would not recommend watching this movie. Still I'm curious if it gets the Academy Award nomination next year and if it possibly has the chance to win. For me it has not.