Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

[domino harvey]

Every indie movie cliche under the sun (it's a road/family reunion/coming of age/odd couple/Holocaust/sexual awakening/crisis of faith movie) dressed up in retro art film frippery. Once you've put your finger on which tack the film is following at any particular moment, you see every plot or chracter development coming a mile away. But the real problem with this unholy mish-mash-up is the cringingly bad tonal control that results. Pawlikowski routinely places scenes of enormous, far-reaching tragedy inbetween those of the inane rom-com plot thread, with no conception or understanding of how each might be affected by this juxtaposition , as if each plot took place in a discrete, hermetically sealed chamber of narration. Combine this lack of sensitivity with a calcified visual scheme based more on popular conceptions of artiness and rigor than any desire to explore the possibilities of form, and you end up with disastrous scenes

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like the aunt's suicide, which is shot, intentionally or not, as slapstick.

The cinematographer is talented, especially with lighting, but the visual design of the film is numbing. Aside from a few wide-ish horizontal pans, nearly every single frame in the film is a static shot with the subject in one corner of the frame and the other three corners left empty. The first scene, of Ida working on statues at the abbey, I thought that this was a revelation. When I realized that Pawlikowski was going to rely on just this one trick for the duration of the film's running time, I was furious. This isn't the rigor of Bresson, Dryer, Ozu, or Straub & Huillet. This is an empty mannerism, one where the eye is given only one task, the inane pleasure of following the subject as it bounces from corner to corner from shot to shot. Ida has much more in common with The Grand Budapest Hotel, still a much superior film, but one that is also severely limited by a childish over-reliance on a very limited but flashy set of cinematic tools.

Why didn't anyone tell me Ray Carney joined the forum?

[Michael Kerpan]

Why didn't anyone tell me Ray Carney joined the forum?

Sounds rather like it, doesn't it.

Either that or Armond....

Seriously, FG, if you are this jaded you need to take a long (like 5 year long) break from movie watching. Take up fishing -- or something, anything. It's not worth watching movies if watching something like Ida (like it or not) can make you so frothing-at-the-mouth enraged.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Watching movies is something that gives me joy far far more often than it does anger. Otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Ida was an unpleasant experience for me. I try to be as or more vocal about my pleasant experiences as I am about my unpleasant ones.

[warren oates]

You know, FG, I like you, I really do, but sometimes it does feel like you're trolling. Like it's less a matter of taste and more a contrarian streak that draws you into relatively hot threads like this with posts like that one. Maybe it's not this way for you when you dislike most films, but sometimes it seems like once you've decided a film's not working for you you'll tend to see every facet of it through that lens. It's not just this or that choice that's bad -- it's all of it and so systematically that you're aghast anyone could have found anything to praise or enjoy.

Pawlikowski routinely places scenes of enormous, far-reaching tragedy in between those of the inane rom-com plot thread, with no conception or understanding of how each might be affected by this juxtaposition , as if each plot took place in a discrete, hermetically sealed chamber of narration.

I'd actually be curious to hear an elaboration of this criticism. Specifically how the love subplot qualifies as "inane rom com" material and how juxtaposing bits of comedy with tragedy (like Shakespeare, Chekhov and company) constitutes a hacky tone deaf approach to narrative.

The first scene, of Ida working on statues at the abbey, I thought that this was a revelation. When I realized that Pawlikowski was going to rely on just this one trick for the duration of the film's running time, I was furious. This isn't the rigor of Bresson, Dryer, Ozu, or Straub & Huillet. This is an empty mannerism, one where the eye is given only one task, the inane pleasure of following the subject as it bounces from corner to corner from shot to shot.

I want to hear more about how you've determined that the film's visual style isn't a rigorous and interesting choice but a cheap and empty trick.

[Michael Kerpan]

Inane rom-com?

The girl has never encountered any young men. She's fascinated -- and she knows she may never again have the opportunity to encounter a young man (fascinating or not). Not even remotely like any rom-com I've ever encountered. Care to name some similar examples, FG?

[MichaelB]

Admittedly it's nearly ten months since I saw the film, so my memory of it isn't as fresh as that of most of those contributing to this thread, but surely the "inane rom-com" subplot is more of a sweet and rather touching juxtaposition whereby Ida is briefly given a chance to explore emotions appropriate to her age after being buffeted by far more complex ones dating from what to her is the comparatively distant past?

Believe me, I've seen plenty of inane Polish rom-coms (it's something of a dominant genre there), and this ain't one.

[Michael Kerpan]

Partly sweet and touching -- and partly conditioned by the aunt's needling comment that she won't be making much of a sacrifice (by becoming a nun) if she has no idea what she is sacrificing. I think this is pretty complex and sophisticated, but perhaps I am foolishly misguided.

[FerdinandGriffon]

You know, FG, I like you, I really do, but sometimes it does feel like you're trolling. Like it's less a matter of taste and more a contrarian streak that draws you into relatively hot threads like this with posts like that one. Maybe it's not this way for you when you dislike most films, but sometimes it seems like once you've decided a film's not working for you you'll tend to see every facet of it through that lens. It's not just this or that choice that's bad -- it's all of it and so systematically that you're aghast anyone could have found anything to praise or enjoy.

Well naturally, a person gets more hot and bothered about a film they dislike if they're constantly being told (online and in real life) that it's an unimpeachable masterpiece. But you're right, I am very interested in getting to grips with the overall conception of a film, not how its various parts work separately so much as how they're supposed to work together. There are very fine things in Ida, the sophisticated lighting and Agata Trzebuchowska's lovely performance, to name two, but I'm more inclined to focus on direction, and find the way Pawlikowski engineered the film stifling of its good qualities.

Specifically how the love subplot qualifies as "inane rom com" material and how juxtaposing bits of comedy with tragedy (like Shakespeare, Chekhov and company) constitutes a hacky tone deaf approach to narrative.

This juxtaposition is of course a fruitful one, and often so in the work of artists superficially close to Ida's style, like that of Bresson, Ozu, and Kaurismaki. But these elements are not so much juxtaposed or interwoven in Ida as jammed into the film end to end, which results

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in the main courtship scenes taking place immediately after the horrors of the grave site discovery and the aunt's suicide and funeral. I'm suspect of any guy who picks up a girl at a funeral, but there's no room for that sort of moral complexity in the film; he's meant to be a storybook dream boy, even if Ida eventually settles for the (equally storybook) religious life.

There is some bleeding at the edges, but within the main bodies of these scenes, there isn't any tonal complexity; the tragic scenes are meant to be tragic, the romantic ones romantic.

I want to hear more about how you've determined that the film's visual style isn't a rigorous and interesting choice but a cheap and empty trick.

Because really all Pawlikowski and his cinematographer have to do to fulfill their visual schema is plonk the subject in one corner of the frame and make sure there's nothing too distracting in the rest. All the shots cut together, because they're similar enough, but it's very hard to build any spacial sense, since it's so disorienting, and the undiscerning application of the technique to almost every narrative need (and it is a relatively conventional narrative in terms of structure and style, content aside for the moment) means it soon ceases to have much particular significance.

[YnEoS]

While I find FG's characterization a bit harsh and dismissive, I don't think it's entirely unwarranted either. I think a lot of features of this film can play out very badly if you get off on the wrong foot with it. I tend to like cinematography that's very functional, and I do think this film is shot well to convey narrative economically while conveying a certain mood and demanding the viewer attend to it at a certain level. But when one isn't caught up in the character interaction a lot of these shots can come across as a very crass attempt to out-art-house everyone else by pushing characters into the furthest corner of the frame decorated with some pretty lighting.

[warren oates]

Because really all Pawlikowski and his cinematographer have to do to fulfill their visual schema is plonk the subject in one corner of the frame and make sure there's nothing too distracting in the rest. All the shots cut together, because they're similar enough, but it's very hard to build any spacial sense, since it's so disorienting, and the undiscerning application of the technique to almost every narrative need (and it is a relatively conventional narrative in terms of structure and style, content aside for the moment) means it soon ceases to have much particular significance.

But that just kind of assumes that the film ought to be interested in building certain spacial relationships you'd prefer or that it fails to do this in its own way. And it ignores the way in which Micheal Kerpan and others above have already argued that the film's shots work together, creating an intensified sense of time and place, flowing into one other with a feeling more akin to long takes.

About "the undiscerning application of the technique to almost every narrative need" -- you could level that criticism against any filmmaker who's ever made a bold stylistic choice and stuck with it for an entire film. Bela Tarr's long takes or, say, the longest -- Sokurov's Russian Ark.

The boy is a flat character because that's sort of the point. Ida never really has time to get to know him, so we don't either. But even with the little evidence we have of what life with him would be like, he seems decent enough if far from being her prince charming. His vision of their potential future life together is perfectly mundane rather than sweepingly romantic. And I'd say you've got the agency reversed in the scene you reference: he doesn't "pick her up" at the funeral so much as she allows herself some respite from the tragedy of that whole affair to reconnect with him.

As for her present or future religious life being "storybook"? I guess we saw a different film. I thought a large part of Ida's crisis of faith was seeing her life in the convent more clearly and not just in light of the worldly alternatives she'd been trying out Rumspringa-like, but in terms of all of the details of daily life there and how the other sisters were living it. And isn't the whole point of the those final shots that she's going back to this life but not with the same passivity and blissful ignorance she had before the film begins.

[FerdinandGriffon]

But that just kind of assumes that the film ought to be interested in building certain spacial relationships you'd prefer or that it fails to do this in its own way. And it ignores the way in which Micheal Kerpan and others above have already argued that the film's shots work together, creating an intensified sense of time and place, flowing into one other with a feeling more akin to long takes.

I just don't know how it's possible to build spatial relationships with this kind of shot, where there's always a (usually human) subject in one corner, and negative space in the rest. As a viewer your eye is drawn exclusively to the subject, with the rest of the frame serving to accentuate or bear down upon that subject. And the way the subject bops from corner to corner makes it very hard to cut around the space in a comprehensible or ordered fashion. Pawlikowski doesn't employ any thing like an equivalent to Ozu's 45 degree cutting that maintains spatial understanding, even when it upends it. Though I think Michael's comments are very perceptive when applied to Ozu, Ozu was a filmmaker who developed an incredibly complex and ever-evolving spatial system based on contiguity and playful shot variation, amongst many other tools, and the only thing Ida shares with this system is the flattening of effect applied to each individual image.

About "the undiscerning application of the technique to almost every narrative need" -- you could level that criticism against any filmmaker who's ever made a bold stylistic choice and stuck with it for an entire film. Bela Tarr's long takes or, say, the longest -- Sokurov's Russian Ark.

But Sokurov and Tarr do not make conventional narratives. They settled on styles that fit the narratives they were telling, or settled on narratives that fit those styles (whichever way around you want it). The problem isn't strong stylistic choices, its making a stylistic choice that, at best, ends up being decorative to the narrative content of the film, and at worst, an obstacle to complexity and appreciation.

Even a first timer like Ramon Zurcher has been able to squeeze a stunning amount of variety and ingenuity out of a very small catalogue of well winnowed techniques. Zurcher's system is a bit of a closed one for my personal taste, but I have enormous respect and admiration for it, respect I can't summon for Pawlkowski's.

[Michael Kerpan]

But Ozu's much wilder, formative period produced all sorts of delights -- such as Walk Cheerfully. One would really have to be pretty stuffy to think that these films would have been much "better" had Ozu been more "disciplined".

All I can say is that the editing and cinematography in Ida (including shot arrangement) looked great (to me) and worked well (for me), and I ultimately don't care a bit about whether some theoretical analysis says I ought to like them.

By the way, there is nothing inherently wrong with decoration -- even "mere" decoration.

[warren oates]

I don't know, FG, I was far less disoriented by Ida than you. I didn't feel assaulted by the framing either. I felt like there was plenty to look at and more than enough leeway in the image that my eye could move around and take the whole thing in. If a scene started on some sort of close-up detail it only made me more interested in and attentive to whatever continuities of space were revealed in the next shot. By way of comparison I usually feel much more lost in the midst of Bresson's aggressive fragmentation of space (not that this is a bad thing).

But Sokurov and Tarr do not make conventional narratives. They settled on styles that fit the narratives they were telling, or settled on narratives that fit those styles (whichever way around you want it). The problem isn't strong stylistic choices, its making a stylistic choice that, at best, ends up being decorative to the narrative content of the film, and at worst, an obstacle to complexity and appreciation.

If only Sokurov hadn't larded all that literal smoke and mirrors all over the rather straightforward melo of mom death that is Mother and Son. Or needlessly abstracted Crime and Punishment beneath some kind of pretentious tone poem. And don't get me started on The Man From London, where Tarr is totally at his worst dressing up a policier as if it were an apocalyptic epic. Didn't we get that idea the first time around, when it was called Damnation? Let's not forget about Sokurov's other literary adaptations. As if weird wide angles were enough to distract us from the totally conventional nature of Madame Bovary's rise and fall!

My point being that the relative conventionality or complexity of a film's underlying narrative isn't that great a yardstick for judging what kind of visual style it ought to be allowed to apply.

[FerdinandGriffon]

I love all of Ozu, including the early work. Ida is a much more rigid, "disciplined" film than any Ozu. All of Ozu's work, from beginning to end, is an amazing repository of technique and variations on techniques. Ida, whether you think it does good with its restriction or not, has only a few kinds of shot.

I haven't seen any of the Sokurov's you mention, Warren, but his Faust is far from a conventional adaptation? And since when is "literary source" synonymous with "conventional narrative"? Dostoevsky, Krazhnahorkai, Simenon, these are all very unusual, idiosyncratic writers in my experience, working far outside conventional norms, even when they were able to find commercial success.

[domino harvey]

I guess this proved popular enough in theatrical run, as Music Box is putting it out on Blu-ray in the US in September!

[perkizitore]

Artificial Eye will be releasing this too

[TMDaines]

I went to see this last weekend at the Cornerhouse in Manchester, knowing little about it other than the fact it was to feature a young nun researching her family past. It's therefore safe to say the "insight" information on the BBFC certificate just before the film began was a spoiler of vast proportions:

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SUICIDE SCENE

Who on earth thought that it would be a good idea to put this information on screen just before the film began? I spent the whole film waiting for someone to top themselves and barely blinked when the aunt leapt from the window. Surely, this should have been a shocking moment, but it was completely neutered by the BBFC. I heard several others commenting on the same thing at the end upon leaving.

Thankfully I saw this this morning and changes are coming. How much fucking handholding does there need to be nowadays with film and video? I really do not know who they are pandering to.

[MichaelB]

The BBFC card for Gods warned of "graphic surgery scenes and strong language", but not vast amounts of chainsmoking in a medical context. Which given the usual obsession with smoking was a rather surprising omission.

[colinr0380]

They didn't use the open chest cavity as an ashtray did they? How do they smoke through the surgical mask? Just hearing about this film raises so many questions!

My favourite recent BBFC consumer advice was for Need For Speed: "Dangerous driving, moderate bad language"! Sounds like the average commute!

[rrenault]

I didn't dislike Ida as much as FG did, and in fact, it certainly had its merits, even if it did indulge in "classic Euro arthouse" veneer at times, but polemics such as FG's, whether in favor or against a film, are healthy. They keep an art form vibrant and alive. I don't understand why everything has to be "interesting" and "have something to offer". Maybe I just don't understand the passionlessness of so much contemporary film criticism and "analysis". What's wrong with waxing poetic about Kiarostami while trashing Assayas or the Dardenne Bros. as "quality" ala Cahiers du Cinema, as if doing such a thing were "discourteous". Why does everything need to be "analyzed"? In short, I don't understand why polemics and passionate disagreements are discouraged in contemporary film discussion. I don't know, maybe I'm just out of touch with contemporary cinephilia, but I don't understand how an art form can sustain itself if people aren't willing to violently defend and stand up for their sacred cows while in the process vehemently disparaging the filmmakers they hate. I just think that should come with the territory of having passion for an art form.

[repeat]

My favourite recent BBFC consumer advice was for Need For Speed: "Dangerous driving, moderate bad language"! Sounds like the average commute!

Definitely an apt description for public transport over here!

What's wrong with waxing poetic about Kiarostami while trashing Assayas or the Dardenne Bros. as "quality" ala Cahiers du Cinema, as if doing such a thing were "discourteous"

Could probably make a better case for exactly the other way around - but personally, I'd rather use the time and energy for promoting something that's actually worthwhile. I'm not sure we need any more opinionated thrashing of anything, while new works ranging from deserving to masterpiece status are flying under people's radars every day. I'm all for vehemently disparaging pet hates in the process, but to go out of one's way just to attack something just seems time badly spent to me...

I like Pawlikowski and liked Ida well enough, but have to admit I didn't feel much of a need to write about it. Actually I didn't find it that over-stylized, was prepared for much worse on the basis of this thread!

[Numero Trois]

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Was she just walking back to the convent? If so, why was she walking so far?

I thought she was. On the other hand, someone asked Pawlikowski a similar question in the Q&A included in the Music Box DVD extras. He left the possibility wide open on whether she did or not.

On board with the plaudits. I was especially pleased with the denouement, which certainly felt perfectly appropriate to the character's natural arc. As opposed to the arc of Paddy Considine's character in My Summer of Love, which felt too predictably abrupt to be credible.

[MongooseCmr]

I will second what FG is saying about the style hindering the film. More than unappealing, it's almost too obvious a stylistic choice. The Rule of Thirds dominates nearly every shot vertically and horizontally, to the point where some shots only show the top half of faces and massive amounts of headroom around them, for no discernible reason. In two very emotional scenes parts of the shot are so poorly framed (Wanda's chin is distractingly cut off so much that her mouth is nearly off screen, and later the SPOILER they find is offscreen only to appear in Wanda's hand the next shot unannounced), and it detracts from the power of the scenes immensely. It may sound dismissive and pompous, but I feel that Pawlikowski had one nice trick that he beats to death whether the scene calls for it or not