Paweł Pawlikowski’s spare drama finds painful feeling in the encounter between a novice nun and her aunt. The two lead performances reward its quiet attention, though the careful framing sometimes keeps us further away than we would like.
Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida is a moving, sometimes frustratingly spare film about a young woman discovering how little she knows about her own family. Anna has a religious vocation; her aunt Wanda has experience that makes such certainty difficult. Their journey through 1960s Poland gives the director a way to approach wartime history without making either woman deliver a lecture. We recommend it for the performances and the patient attention to faces, with a warning that its reluctance to explain can occasionally leave a character too far away.
Agata Trzebuchowska plays Anna with a reserve that suits someone confronting a past she did not know was hers. The screenplay, by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Paweł Pawlikowski, puts questions of Jewish identity and Catholic faith into a family relationship. That helps because Anna has to make sense of Wanda as well as unfamiliar facts about her parents. Her quietness is persuasive, though we sometimes wanted more access to the young woman behind it.
Agata Kulesza gives Wanda enough force to disturb that quiet without overwhelming her companion. The aunt’s self-destructiveness makes her an uncomfortable guide for the novice, and the performance never makes her easier company for our benefit. We found her painful to watch: she can help Anna confront the past and still seem unable to live with it herself. The contrast between the women carries the film through passages where a little more dialogue might have made their history easier to follow.
Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski photograph the women in black and white, using the narrow Academy frame to make us attend to a face. The off-centre compositions can look severe, and their stillness gives us time to look at both women. Mostly, that patience pays off: a slight difference between their expressions becomes worth noticing. Occasionally the arrangement looks so deliberate that we catch ourselves studying the framing when we should be thinking about Anna.
Production designers Katarzyna Sobańska and Marcel Sławiński keep the surroundings spare, giving the period a convincing everyday plainness. It matters that the places these women pass through do not demand admiration at every stop. Jarosław Kamiński’s editing is similarly economical, getting the film through its journey in 82 minutes without making the central relationship feel hurried. We could have used a little more time with the people outside that relationship, but expanding the film simply to explain its history would have been the wrong remedy.
Kristian Eidnes Andersen’s music belongs to a film willing to leave long stretches to silence, and that restraint is welcome. There is already enough sadness in the women’s faces without further prompting. As a historical drama, Ida trusts a small encounter to matter without having to declare what it represents about an entire country. Anna’s vocation is taken seriously, and learning about her family is allowed to complicate her faith without settling the matter for her.
This is a short film that needs more attention than its running time might suggest. Anyone hoping for a brisk investigation with the comfort of settled answers should approach it cautiously; the interest lies in what Anna and Wanda can bear to understand about each other. Give it an evening when silence is welcome, and leave the phone in another room.
