Ida (2014)

Agata Trzebuchowska gives a remarkable performance in "Ida."

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida,” won top honors during its European run and was an Oscar nominee for best foreign film in 2013. Its US release didn’t come until this year and now the movie—an austere, mesmerizing coming of age story about a sheltered young woman discovering haunting secrets about her past—is justifiably appearing on the best ten lists of many critics and fans alike.

Agata Trzebuchowska is remarkable in the lead role as Anna, a young nun living in Poland during the 1960s. Nearing the day to take her vows, the superior sends Anna away to finally meet her aunt and only living relative. Both of her parents died during the war and Anna grew up as an orphan.

Anna meets her aunt, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza, in a brave and devastating performance), a former respected judge and prosecuter, turned world-weary and bitterly cynical, chain-smoking and regularly dousing her demons with hard liquor. Wanda reveals that Anna’s real name is Ida, that her parents were murdered during the war, and that despite living at a Catholic convent as a nun, she is actually Jewish.

The two women begin a journey to find the remains of Anna’s parents, so that they can be brought elsewhere to a proper grave. The pursuit is cold and emotionally painful, across a desolate, snow-covered Poland, made more effective by Pawlikowski’s brilliant use of black and white photography.

The differences between the spiritual Anna and the faithless Wanda are stark, but the grave circumstances bring them closer. In Anna, Wanda sees signs of the sister she misses and is comforted; in Wanda, Anna sees a glimpse of the family she never knew.

Along the way, dark secrets are uncovered. Anna meets the man who first gave her parents sanctuary during the war before murdering them, perhaps because the Nazis were closing in; he is old, frail and hospital-bound, with sins having seemingly caught up to him.

An exuberant adventure begins when Anna befriends a handsome young musician, a fascination that leads to a subtle, yet surprising twist that questions her convictions and celebrates her awareness. “You have no idea the effect you have,” he tells her. The scene when Anna, in private, quietly removes her headdress and reveals the beautiful young woman underneath plays like a wonderful moment of self-discovery.

The power of the film lies in Trzebuchowska’s great performance and Pawlikowski’s stirring imagery. The director photographs with long shots to emphasize deep pools of space, giving the impression that his characters are isolated in a world full of ghosts and suffering.  Sometimes the camera is positioned away from them, as if unable to bear the look on their anguished faces. Amidst this solemnity is Anna, praying that the long-buried evils of the past do not destroy her faith in the future.