Ida, the 2013 Polish film directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and the 2015 Academy Award winner for the Best Foreign Language Film, is stunning. Austere and minimal, the film is refreshingly simplistic. In a film with a notable absence of music and dialogue, the interplay of sound and silence provides an informative lens to consider the story.

Set in 1962 Poland, the film shows a country under Stalinist dictatorship just beginning to feel the reach of the West through the introduction of jazz. Poland lost a fifth of its population during WWII. Among the losses were three million Jews. A Communist takeover by the USSR and Red Army followed, leading to further loss. The viewers see a desolate country, which hints at the suffering and aftermath of Nazi occupation during WWII and Soviet rule in a process of recovery not yet complete. This isn’t explicitly expressed, but is felt in the heavy silence throughout the film. The lack of sound forces the viewer to visually focus on the film. The prevalence of silence highlights the importance of the few sounds the viewer hears.

Pawlikowski guides the viewer through Ida and Wanda’s journey with the efficient peppering of music throughout the film. Jazz is the mostly commonly played music form in the film. The viewers see people dancing in jazz clubs as a popular pastime and a sign of how Poland is westernizing. Lis, the handsome saxophone player the main characters, Ida and Wanda, meet on the road, embodies the free spirit of jazz. Jazz here is associated with improvisation and the free jazz of the 1960s in the US and other Western European countries. From the Polish perspective, jazz is unfettered by the past. But away from these pockets of freedom in the jazz clubs, other parts of the country still are shrouded in silence, such as the convent.

Ida plans to take her vows and devote herself to God. However, before doing so, she is instructed to seek out her only living relative, her aunt, Wanda Gruz. When she leaves the convent to go to the city and meet Wanda, she embarks on a journey to discover her own history. To start, she learns that she is actually a Jew born with the name Ida Lebenstein, while in the convent she is known as Anna. Wanda sardonically calls her a “Jewish nun.” There’s bitterness in her words as Ida was the one that escaped persecution during the war while Wanda had a different experience of immense loss. From that moment, their paths merge. They take a road trip to the village Wanda and Ida’s family lived in to find out more about the Lebensteins, which forces them to face the past. When they finally recover the bones of Ida’s parents and Wanda’s son and bury them in their Lublin family grave, the past is supposedly buried. However, the memory of the past persists, which leads Wanda to commit suicide as a result of losing faith and Ida to retreat back into the convent to protect her faith.

When Wanda prepares to commit suicide, Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, known as the Jupiter Symphony, plays in the background. At first, it almost seems like she is just preparing for a normal day until she disappears through the window. Viewers may feel disoriented by the unexpected action and jolted by the sudden blast of music after prolonged silence in the film. The aural reengagement with the film is jarring.

The Jupiter Symphony is Wanda’s motif. Like the song, Wanda is loud and bold. She appears in Ida’s life embodying a grand change and leaves just as suddenly. Viewers find out she chose not to raise Ida because of how much Ida reminded her of her dead sister. There are moments Wanda dotes on Ida and marvels at the resemblance, but grief overpowers her. Her affection for Ida stood no chance against Ida’s faith and conviction.

Ida’s return to the convent is set to Bach’s chorale prelude “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” represents her choice to choose the convent and God. The song name translates to “I call to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” Pure in style, it has been described as “a supplication in time of despair” by music critics. This could be how Ida feels after getting a taste of the outside world through her travels with Wanda and after Wanda’s death, trying on her clothes, habits, and sleeping with Lis. She experiences life as Wanda said she should, to know what she is sacrificing. She doesn’t choose Lis and the world because of its uncertainty. What Lis replies when she asks, “and then?” is unfamiliar. He says “life” but the only life she knows is the repetitive stability of the convent. However, she doesn’t return to the convent as the same person. Ida carries the memory of Wanda with her. She may be retreating back into her comfort zone, but there is a hint of confidence and drive that reminds the viewer of Wanda. The camera focuses on Ida’s face and movements in the last scene, whereas previously, she was more often depicted beside a larger and stronger presence – be it Wanda, nature or the city.

The interplay of silence and sound defines the film. Silence is the drone in the background, symbolizing a country still recovering from the past. Jazz, through Lis, is the sign of a new openness and westernization. In the same way, Mozart and Bach are classical music representations for Wanda and Ida, two people affected by a heavy past. The minimal but effective use of music further elevates an already cinematically artful film. I don’t know another film that uses this technique as efficiently as Ida does to tell a story, so listen closely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQvx6Gxgtp0