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Ida
Running time: 1hr & 24minLanguage: PolishBlaine: I never heard of "Ida" until it was nominated for Best Foreign film during this past award season. I watched it in March 2015 after buying it on Amazon and I love it. My rating is 5 out of 5 stars. What I love the most about "Ida" is it's story. Ida won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film. It was nominated for Best Cinematography. There were many great shots that I really liked in the film. The film was shot in a square frame and in black and white. Plot (Spoiler Alert)Set in Poland in 1962, a 19 year old nun named Ida learns she is Jewish. She grew up orphaned in a convent. She goes to see her only living relative, who is an intellectual communist. Ida and her aunt Wanda embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their family during the German occupation of World War II. The first place Wanda takes Ida is the house they used to live in. The house now belongs to a man named Feliks Skiba and his family. Wanda had left her family during the war; the Skibas had hidden the Lebensteins from the German authorities. Wanda demands that Felix and his father tell them what happened to the Lebensteins. Felix won't tell them so they go to the father who is in a hospital. After Feliks finds out they questioned his father, he promises to show them where the Lebensteins are buried if they promise to leave his father alone. Feliks takes them to the burial place in the woods and digs them up. Ida and Wanda take the bones and give them a proper burial in a Jewish cemetery in Lublin. After that Wanda and Ida go their separate ways. Ida returns to the convent to prepare for her vows, but she doesn't feel ready to take them yet. Wanda has taken her own life by jumping out of her apartment window. Ida attends to Wanda's funeral. She stays in Wanda's apartment for a few days and cleans it up a bit. Ida then changes into Wanda's stilettos and evening gown and experiments by doing things she's never done before by drinking and smoking and then going down to Lis's gig. Lis is someone Ida and Wanda met while they were on the road. She dances with a him and then they sleep together. Lis tells Ida they should get married and have children together, but Ida feels that's not what she really wants. She leaves and returns to the convent. Screenwriter and Director Pawel Pawlikowski with his 2 leading woman Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska on the Red Carpet of the 87th Academy Awards. 
Agata Trzebuchowska who plays Ida has never before acted in her life. Director Pawel Pawlikowski said he auditioned about 400 or 500 young women, but they just didn't feel right to him. Agata Trzebuchowska was discovered in a Warsaw cafe by Malgozata Szumowska and she sent a picture of Agata to Pawel and that's how she got the job. Agata doesn't have any plans to pursue a career in acting from what I've read. 
MusicThe music score was done by Kristian Eidnes Anderson, although there's not a lot of music in the background through out the film.Ida Cinematography Shots on Page 2 |