IDA: Masterpiece or Overrated?
Because a student recommended Cold War, I watched it and then decided to watch Ida, an earlier film by the same director, Pawel P. (sorry, can't spell). I watched it last night and I'm still thinking about it. I don't know if it's good or not. It won an Academy Award, so it must be good. The people on IMDB don't all agree. I don't think it's as good as Cold War, which I was more affected by.
I think the difference is that Cold War is less ambitious and meets its goals. With Ida you have to deal with Nazis, Communists, the Catholic Church, AND the characters. And all that is done in less than 85 minutes, a lot of which is long shots of faces that aren't doing much but staring or smoking. I understand why the long shots, but they seem overdone. So I'm thinking if to be minimalistic in the approach, too many holes and gaps are left unexplained and unfilled. For example, I thought the little boy whose remains they reburied was Wanda's child, not the brother, since Wanda says "you were an only child" and the way she holds the skull. (For those who haven't seen it, I do recommend it, but there are spoilers here, but you don't know the context either.)
Does Ida have the one night of being a wild child just because of an off-hand comment from Wanda that her vows won't mean anything if she hasn't really sinned? I had a little trouble believing Ida would throw away her background for one night and then go back to take her vows as a full nun. Why not just stay in the world? Yet this could be an interesting detour of thought. Was she treating the world like all experience in the outside world is the same, as if to say, "I just have to experience something? "Was it her expression of nihilism (since she had lost all her family) the same way that Wanda's suicide is an expression of her nihilism?
And why does Wanda commit suicide? Because Ida hasn't stayed with her, even though Wanda needs her? Did Ida realize that? Because of finding and knowing what happened to her sister? In the IMDB comments, the reviewers who are more savvy about Polish history says Wanda is based on a real character who had been a judge of anti-socialist Poles at the beginning of the Cold War and executed many, many people who fought Communism. That adds a whole different feel.
In general, I just wasn't sure the plot was robust enough, or the characterizations. They seemed thin, replaced by atmosphere and moving black and white images. Even so, I think it is a valuable film to watch and discuss, I'm just not sure it's satisfying; it's sort of like a skimming over water.
I think the difference is that Cold War is less ambitious and meets its goals. With Ida you have to deal with Nazis, Communists, the Catholic Church, AND the characters. And all that is done in less than 85 minutes, a lot of which is long shots of faces that aren't doing much but staring or smoking. I understand why the long shots, but they seem overdone. So I'm thinking if to be minimalistic in the approach, too many holes and gaps are left unexplained and unfilled. For example, I thought the little boy whose remains they reburied was Wanda's child, not the brother, since Wanda says "you were an only child" and the way she holds the skull. (For those who haven't seen it, I do recommend it, but there are spoilers here, but you don't know the context either.)
Does Ida have the one night of being a wild child just because of an off-hand comment from Wanda that her vows won't mean anything if she hasn't really sinned? I had a little trouble believing Ida would throw away her background for one night and then go back to take her vows as a full nun. Why not just stay in the world? Yet this could be an interesting detour of thought. Was she treating the world like all experience in the outside world is the same, as if to say, "I just have to experience something? "Was it her expression of nihilism (since she had lost all her family) the same way that Wanda's suicide is an expression of her nihilism?
And why does Wanda commit suicide? Because Ida hasn't stayed with her, even though Wanda needs her? Did Ida realize that? Because of finding and knowing what happened to her sister? In the IMDB comments, the reviewers who are more savvy about Polish history says Wanda is based on a real character who had been a judge of anti-socialist Poles at the beginning of the Cold War and executed many, many people who fought Communism. That adds a whole different feel.
In general, I just wasn't sure the plot was robust enough, or the characterizations. They seemed thin, replaced by atmosphere and moving black and white images. Even so, I think it is a valuable film to watch and discuss, I'm just not sure it's satisfying; it's sort of like a skimming over water.
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