Ida ***** (2013, Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza) – Movie Review

Young novitiate Ida’s plans to become a nun in 1962 Poland are interrupted by her convent’s insistence on her visiting her estranged aunt Wanda just before she takes her vows.

Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska) is an orphan who has been brought up by the nuns in the convent and has known no other life. As Ida leaves the convent for the first time, she finds her only living relative Wanda (Agata Kulesza) is an alcoholic retired judge – and Jewish. Wanda tells Ida about her Jewish roots and the two women then embark on a journey to discover their family’s tragic story. Cue dark family secrets dating back to the Nazi occupation.

Polish-born, British trained co-writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski‘s film is a bleak, wrist-slashing, brilliant world cinema art work. The shocking narrative, the appalling underlying issues and the stark, spare black-and-white, narrow-screen film-making should be totally alienating, but somehow this haunting film is totally, devastatingly moving.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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