It’s hard to decide exactly what period this new cinematic masterpiece from Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is set in with its austere dramatic settings that look like they have remained unchanged for centuries. This unforgiving bleak countryside that seems to have escaped any attempt at modernisation is in fact 1962 but you have this sinking feeling that this part of rural post-war Poland is probably still exactly the same today.
She has two major shocks awaiting her at the end of her long bus journey when she finally meets her Aunt. Not only does she discover that she is Jewish by birth, but she also quickly realises that her Aunt, is a former high-ranking Communist Party Public Prosecutor who has transgressed into an alcoholic chain-smoking woman who seems to bed every man she meets. The sheltered young nun-to-be however seems to take it all into her stride and announces that she wants to go back to her home village just once and visit her parents grave.
Along their road-trip they give a lift to a handsome young saxophonist who is enroute to play at a Ball in the next town. Ida doesn’t realise at the time that he will turn out to be one of the reasons that she questions her vocation and her ‘calling’ to serve God.Completely unmissable.
P.S. The really surprising detail about this movie that will undoubtedly go down in the annals of Polish cinema as a national masterpiece, is that it’s director and co-writer Pawel Pawlikowskin was born there but has actually lived and worked in the UK and France most of his life. Interesting then seeing the country as he must remember it from his own childhood.
★★★★★★★★★
Labels: 2014, black & white, drama, Polish, religion
