Ida is not a film that takes place on screen–rather, it unfolds in the mind and soul of the viewer. Pawel Pawlikowski manages to carry a deep emotional weight throughout the film and keep the audience enchanted with only stagnant, sparse shots. Through sharp cinematic choices, he creates a beautiful piece of brutal realist cinema that leaves the viewer with something far greater than what is shown on the screen.
The film opens in a convent, revealing scenes of women in grey robes, but never centering on one. We watch as the uniformed figures go about their day, each one as insignificant as the last. The monotony of this life is immediately evident even though only a few ordinary moments are offered. Women walk dutifully through the bottom quadrants of the frame and spoons clang against bowls at supper, each shot so sparse it serves to heighten any motion or sound. Finally, the camera focuses on a beautiful wide-eyed young woman who we learn is Anna, a novice nun about to take her vows. Mother Superior tells her that before she can relinquish herself fully to a life of worship and sacrifice she must meet her only living relative.
When Anna meets her aunt Wanda, she finds a hardened woman. In their first encounter, Wanda lights a cigarette and proceeds to tell Anna the truth. Her name is not Anna–it’s Ida, and she is the daughter of two Jews who were killed during the war. Ida, who had never left the convent where she was left as an infant, suddenly finds her whole life turned upside down. Soon after, the unlikely pair set off on a journey. They leave to find the burial plot of Ida’s parents and Wanda’s son, discovering the truth behind their tragic deaths along the way. The movie turns to a reckoning of the past for both Ida and Wanda, and leads them to a deeper understanding of themselves, their Jewish identity, and Poland’s harsh history.
As the two pursue their journey, what enchants the viewer is not the plot but the moments. Starting at Wanda’s kitchen table, when Ida discovers the truth about who she really is, she does not burst out in emotion. Rather, we see a simple long take of Ida sitting quietly. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t ask any questions. All Pawlikowski offers the viewer is the stark unspoken emotion of the scene. Each blink, each blank stare, heightens the scene, leaving nothing behind but raw feeling. Nearly every shot operates in this way: precisely framed and composed of only the most minimal elements. Most of the shots are long takes, often capturing one character at a time while the world moves around her. Though each shot is slow-moving and stagnant, the film as a whole does not lull or feel lifeless. By scraping down the frame to almost nothing, Pawlikowski elevates each moment, expression, sound, and emotion. The rawest, most moving moments are experienced simply through the eyes of these characters. Because we do not witness the action or drama we expect to see in modern Western films, what we do get is all the more powerful.
The director tells this story through a harsh lens and draws on themes of oppression and revelations through cinemagraphic choices. Pawlikowski frames his shots with the characters in the bottom of the frame, leaving vast expanses of space above. This unbalanced shooting style feels oppressive, as if the weight of the world looms over these two women. Between these oppressive top-heavy shots and the uncentering of the characters, the film creates an uneasy feeling, in a way that is hard to pin down. Pawlikowski’s cinematic choices convey meaning in a subtle but effective way. Nearly every sound is diegetic. There’s no soundtrack, and what music does occur is deeply poignant. Wanda, for example, is torn musically between the upbeat new age western jazz music, and soulful, somber classical music. When she shows Ida photographs of her lost family, we hear Mozart on a record in the background, and just at the moment in which Ida asks about the little boy in the picture, the music shifts to a minor key. Wanda gets up and moves the needle on the record and ends the movement, but the point has been made. For a moment we are taken to a somber place, and though we do not understand yet the depth or cause of Wanda’s suffering, we feel a sense of pain. The viewer is not given much, and the director never explicitly tells us how to feel, but rather he invites us to explore these emotions ourselves.
As we follow Ida and Wanda through their journey, we can only watch their characters develop through glimpses of their lives. Early on, Ida is filmed so that she is hardly noticeable, often partially out of the frame, and is characterized by her extreme innocence. Meanwhile, her aunt Wanda draws the eye of the viewer with her dark coat and aloof personality. As the two grow and become closer, we are allowed to see beyond Wanda’s hard external demeanor, and we see Ida come into herself as a person. Though Wanda’s darkness deeply contrasts with Ida’s lightness, this contrast serves a more complex purpose than a juxtaposition of good and evil. Ida is a nun–she prays before bed each night while Wanda downs a slug of vodka. But she has not truly lived, and so her lightness is shallow, since there cannot be true light without having seen darkness. Wanda, on the other hand, may be a sinner in the eyes of God, but her darkness is complex–it has been forged from necessity. The two, in a unlikely way, help break down each other’s walls. Ida lives, and learns of the harsh reality of the world, and Wanda comes back in touch with her emotional self.
In the end, the two are both forced to confront their past in a way they hadn’t expected to, and the truth brings them to final and brutal ratifications. The last times we see Wanda and Ida are among the most powerful and jarring. The scenes are again not driven by plot but rather by emotion, as we watch long, poignant moments unfold. The film ends on a somber note, but not an unexpected one for both women, with the two of them meeting similar fates. We leave with a deeper understanding of this girl and her aunt, and a beautiful sorrow for them as well.