Ida (2013) is a Polish film co-written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. This brilliant film follows a few days in the life of Anna, a young novitiate nun. Anna has been raised in a convent, and she plans to take her vows and stay in the convent for the rest of her life.

However, before this can take place, the mother superior sends her to meet her only living relative, a woman named Wanda.

The pair could not be less similar. Ida is quiet, gentle, thoughtful, and shy. Her aunt is tough as nails--she has real power as a judge, and she knows how to use it. She's a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker. She's also a Jew.

In the first few minutes of the movie, Anna learns that she's Jewish. As a very young girl, she was taken to the convent, where the nuns raised her. (Her real name is Ida, which is why that's the title of the film.)

Wanda and Anna set out to return to their rural home, to solve the mystery of what happened to their family 20 years earlier. Why did Ida survive, when her family--other than Wanda--did not?

This film, shot in black & white, is superbly constructed on every dimension. The plot is tight, and the acting is incredible. Agata Kulesza (Wanda) and Agata Trzebuchowska (Anna/Ida),are immensely talented actors.

The cinematography is incomparable. My wife and I felt as if any frame--from the beginning to the end of the movie--would make a great still photograph.

Pawlikowski knows how to focus on his main actors, but he also lets us know that, while the protagonists are involved in heartbreaking drama, the rest of the world is going about its business around them.

This is a grim film. Anna's life is restricted by her piety. Wanda's life is constricted by alcohol and--it would appear--by lack of any close personal relationships. Everyone in Poland is restricted by horrible memories, dark secrets, and Soviet domination.

Grim or not, this is a film you shouldn't pass up if you care about great cinema. We saw it on a large screen at the LittleTheatre in Rochester, NY. However, it will work well enough on DVD. Don't miss it.

"Ida" is a film that I should have loved since the story idea was very, very strong. Yet, inexplicably, the film managed to lose me due to the zombie-like acting and the overall lack of energy. It's a darn shame--I really wanted to like this film.

The title character is a novice at a nunnery at around 1960 in Poland She's planning on becoming a full-fledged nun but has yet to take her final vows. However, before this ceremony can occur, the Reverend Mother calls her to her office. Although Ida was raised in an orphanage, it seems that she DOES have one family member--an aunt who refused to take her in when she needed a home. Now the head of the nunnery wants Ida to make contact with the aunt. This is an odd request--and it makes sense once she meets this lady. It turns out that the reason Ida was an orphan was that her parents were Jews and were murdered during the Holocaust...and this aunt is the only other survivor in the family. The aunt is a bit screwed up and drinks a lot, but the two manage to spend time getting to know each other. Then, they both go off on a trek to learn the fates of Ida's parents--something that others really don't want to discuss. After all, many of these folks had helped the Nazis track down the Jews or even killed them for the Nazis. During all this, Ida remains steadfast in her desire to become a nun...that is until very late in the film when she begins to act a bit inexplicably.

The film has one of the better story ideas I can recall about the Holocaust--mostly because it's so novel. However, the story managed to make very little of this due to the odd decision to have almost zero energy in the film. As for the actress playing Ida, I doubt if she spoke for more than about two minutes during the film and could be described almost as if she's sleepwalking throughout the picture. As for the aunt, she has some feeling but drowns it in booze--and her feelings, while present, are still very restrained--too restrained. The overall feeling of this under-emoting and stark black & white cinematography is underwhelming to say the least. This film SHOULD have been very hard-hitting and intense. Instead, it just limps to a conclusion that simply left me baffled. Not a terrible film by any means but one that left me disappointed and frustrated.

It's 1960s rural Poland. Orphan Anna is a novice nun after being raised by nuns in the convent. She sees her only surviving relative Wanda Grub who is a hard drinking judge. She's told that her real name is Ida Lebenstein and their family was slaughtered late in the war. She goes in search of her past and find shocking revelations.

The movie's black and white cinematography looks gorgeous. The sparse dialog and quiet acting fills this with atmospheric gloom. There are surprising twists. It's heart-breaking. The coldness does overtake the movie too much and the actors aren't allowed to truly emote. The movie needs moments of emotional explosions to break up the slow gloom. Instead there are emotional explosions but shot in a quiet way.