IDA

Poland, 2013, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Agata Kuleszi, Agata Tzrebuchowska.
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowsi.

This is a very striking film, both interesting and challenging.

Director Pawel Pawlikowski went from Poland to the United Kingdom several years ago and made two very well-received films, The Last Resort, about difficulties migrants faced in coming to Britain, and My Summer of Love, a coming of age story of two young women in the English countryside. Now, he has returned to Poland with a story of his country before and during World War II and into the 1960s and the drab era of the communist regime.

The film is of great interest to Polish audiences at home and around the world, a story which takes them back to the relationship between the traditional Polish citizens and the Jews, the anti-Semitic experiences and some help between Catholics and Jews.

A statue of Jesus is the opening image of the film, a group of novice nuns in the 1960s cleaning and repairing this statue which is then put on a pedestal outside the convent. One of the novices is Anna who is preparing for her vows in the coming week. She is called in to see the superior who suggests she go to visit her only surviving relative, an aunt. Because Anna has lived in the orphanage and the convent all her life, she is reluctant to go. The superior orders her to go. She does and does not find an instant warm welcome from her aunt.

We realise that the superior has strong reasons for sending Anna on this visit. Without any preparation, the aunt explains to her that her name is not Anna but Ida and that she is Jewish, something of which the young novice was completely unaware.

Anna immediately calls herself Ida. Her parents were killed during the war and her aunt, who is a local magistrate and respected by the regime, decides that they should go to find out the truth about what had happened. This takes them to the old family home, the farmer and his wife who live there now, his elderly father who is in the hospital, and information about where the family had been buried. For Ida, the explanation of how she came to be in the Catholic orphanage is important and, in the midst of brutal anti-Semitism, there is a moment of grace in the saving of the young child.

The aunt questions Ida about her vocation, her isolation from the world and from any worldly experience and how she can make her vows. There is some complication when aunt and niece give a lift to a musician who plays with his band in the local club.

Of particular interest is the crisis that Ida must face in terms of her commitment, her lack of sexual awareness, of the ordinary trappings of the world, including clothing, smoking, alcohol. The film resolves the crisis with a blend of drama and quiet underplaying.

In fact, the film is reminiscent of classic Polish films of the 1950s and 1960s, filmed in austere black and white, an emphasis on close-ups and body language, classic framing for encounters, a reminder of the qualities of this kind of fine but less complicated film-making.

Ida won an ecumenical award in Warsaw Film Festival, 2013.



1. The impact of the film? For Polish audiences? World audiences? Jewish audiences? Catholic audiences? Winner of awards, including international an ecumenical award?

2. The choice of black and white photography, its effect, the compositions, the framing, light and dark, clear and shadow? Like the Polish and Czech films coming from Eastern Europe in the 1960s?

3. The sensibility of Catholics and Jews and their response to the characters, the situations, the memories of Catholics and persecution of Jews in pre-war Poland?

4. The title, Anna and her discovery that her true name was Ida? The revelation?

5. Poland in the 1960s, post-war, the Communist regime, the drabness of life, the look of the streets, homes, the clubs and the few audiences, and their sitting passively listening to the music? The countryside, the farms, the woods, the dilapidated cemetery? The convent, interiors, the exterior? The aunt’s apartment, the courts? The school, the use of silence, the contemporary songs and their being sung in the club, the band playing? Creating atmosphere?

6. The initial focus on the statue of Jesus, the young nuns and their cleaning and fixing? The habits, devotion? The carrying the statue, putting it on the pedestal? Outside the convent? The symbol – especially in Communist Poland at the time?

7. Convent life, the nuns singing in choir, chanting, meals and silence, old-style habits for the older nuns, glances only in the refectory, a life of contemplation, individual silence? The contrast with the novices, at the meals, their work, sitting together, communicating, the vivid scene of their washing each other and the implications? The background of the girls as orphans, no experience outside the convent? The preparation for vows?

8. Anna, her life, pious, the orphan, going to the superior, not wanting to see her aunt, the superior telling her to go before she made her vows, the irony of the truth that the superior knew? Going, packing with the other novices, travelling on the bus, the arrival, going to her aunt’s house, the aunt’s reaction, bringing her in, immediately telling her the truth, the photos? The effect on Anna? Calling herself Ida, finding that she had a Jewish identity which she did not understand?

9. The character of the aunt, at her home, her relationship with Ida’s mother, her own reputation in the court, Red Wanda, the acclaim after her death for her contribution to Poland after the war? Giving Ida the room? talking with her? The man leaving in the morning, her seeing herself as a slut and using this word to Ida, drinking, at the court, on the panel, listening? The decision to go on the journey? Taking Ida? Going to the farm, meeting the farmer’s wife, the baby, her asking a blessing from Ida because she was a nun? returning and meeting the farmer, the story about Ida’s mother and the family, hidden in the woods? The role of his father? His father in hospital? The search for the father, Wanda going into the cafe, drinking the shots, asking the old man, getting information from the waitress? The contacts, going to the hospital, finding the father, talking with him, his physical condition, almost dying? Ida witnessing everything – and discovering the truth about the boy in the photo, Wanda’s dead son?

10. Giving the lift to the musician, playing the gig? The invitation? Wanda with the dresses, Ida refusing to go? Going to the club, the music, drinking, dancing, Wanda and the man, the night? Ida and her piously kneeling, hands joined, praying?

11. The farmer, telling the truth to Ida, doing the deal that he would show them the place of burial and they would not take his farm? Confessing that he killed the parents and the boy? Ida asking why he had saved her? His explaining that she was so small, would not necessarily be seen as Jewish, taking her to the priest and hoping she would have a life? Going to the woods, the digging, finding the bones, going to the cemetery, the sad burial of the bones?

12. The effect on Ida? About her family, the description of her mother? The references to her mother and her creativity, the stained glass window and Wanda’s comments?

13. The return, Wanda and her looking at the photos, playing the classical music, the drink, going to the window, jumping? Her funeral, Ida, the musician, the tribute to her from the Communist Party?

14. Ida, her return, her decision not to take final vows first vows, the procession, the ceremony, those attending, the profession of vows, dressed in the habit? Ida watching?

15. After the funeral, taking off her habit, putting on her aunt’s dress, going down to the bar, knowing that she liked the music, the musician, the band playing? Her drinking? Smoking? Going with the musician, the sexual encounter, being sluttish like her aunt? Her aunt and her psychological abuse of Ida by showing her this kind of example and the innocent Ida following it?

16. After the sexual encounter, leaving the men in the bed, knowing the questions that her aunt had asked about taking vows without experience? Her decision, returning to the convent, outside the convent, the statue of the Sacred Heart? Her future?

17. This glimpse of Poland, Catholics and pre—war Poland? The aftermath, the Communist occupation? The place of the church? The convent? Jews in pre-war Poland, treatment, persecution, sheltering, death?

18. Ida and her identity, Jewish, Catholic? And the responses of Jewish audiences? Catholic audiences?