Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

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FrauBlucher
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Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#1 Post by FrauBlucher » Fri Apr 25, 2014 8:36 pm

Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida This looks like a potential Oscar nominee in the FF category. This has done extraordinary on the festival circuit

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MichaelB
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Re: The Films of 2014

#2 Post by MichaelB » Sat Apr 26, 2014 12:57 am

It's already out on DVD in Poland, apparently with English subtitles, but I haven't confirmed this first hand.

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Jeff
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Re: The Films of 2014

#3 Post by Jeff » Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:06 pm

This is a pretty wonderful "crisis of faith" story. Agata Trzebuchowska, with no previous acting experience, carries the film via haunting looks and very little dialogue. Stunning revelations, tragic family history, and John Coltrane are a lot to deal with for an 18-year-old nun, but Pawlikowski unpacks the narrative so naturally, it's kind of amazing that the film only runs 80 minutes. Also surprising is the fact that the film had two cinematographers. Outside of Wes Anderson, perhaps, this is the most distinctive framing and mise en scene I've come across in sometime. Beautiful black and white, meticulously composed at 1.37, with most of the action (including several close-ups) consigned to the lower third of the frame. It's striking. It appears to be wrapping up it's theatrical run, but do see it on the big screen if you get a chance.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#4 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Jun 28, 2014 8:43 pm

I would agree -- except would say it is a _very_ wonderful film. Supposedly it is only 80 minutes long -- but it seemed much longer -- in a _good_ way. There was so much to see and appreciate.

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YnEoS
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#5 Post by YnEoS » Sat Jun 28, 2014 10:56 pm

I was really optimistic about this film, but I didn't get much out of it. The odd framing felt more awkward to me than adding anything to the narrative or mood of the film most of the time. I couldn't really get in sync with the pacing of the film either, it didn't seem to get very far for a film with such a short run time to tell its story, nor did it really draw me in the way longer slower paced films usually do.

Though mostly I'm being nitpicky, I liked it overall, but I was hoping for much much more.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#6 Post by FrauBlucher » Sat Jun 28, 2014 11:09 pm

Jeff, your quick overview is right on. Pawlikowski creates a stark, beautiful, painterly film that lends itself so much to the narrative of "crisis of faith," as you say and I'll add "identity' to that desciption. What I appreciated the most from the narrative is Pawlikowski didn't allow either main character to become heavy handed in their relationship towards each other, which made the
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family secret
even more dramatic and believable.

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GaryC
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#7 Post by GaryC » Sun Jun 29, 2014 3:17 am

I saw this in Warsaw (the Kinoteka cinema inside the Palace of Culture) at the end of last October, in a showing which had English subtitles. I'll definitely watch it again - hopefully on its UK cinema release, which is on 26 September.

Curzon Film World are the distributors, so it will remain to be seen if their Blu-ray and DVD releases have fixed subtitles. On their recent form, they're more likely to have them than not, but we'll see. My Polish is very basic anyway, so I couldn't have done without them for this film.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#8 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:37 am

About the ending:
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Was she just walking back to the convent? If so, why was she walking so far?
All I can say yneos is that your experience is completely the opposite of that of my wife and I. It seemed to cover an immense amount of material -- without ever feeling the least bit rushed. The editing was really quite impressive.

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MichaelB
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#9 Post by MichaelB » Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:54 am

It's out on English-subtitled DVD in Poland already, and you can guarantee that those subtitles will be optional.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#10 Post by Jack Phillips » Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:48 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:About the ending:
SpoilerShow
Was she just walking back to the convent? If so, why was she walking so far?
What do you mean? She doesn't have a car. There's no one to take her back. The place you mention is a bit out of the way. So, naturally . . .

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dad1153
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#11 Post by dad1153 » Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:27 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:About the ending:
SpoilerShow
Was she just walking back to the convent? If so, why was she walking so far?
My take,
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she's on a road to nowhere in particular, with the traffic going in opposite direction because she's an individual that's always gone against the grain that will make an individual choice that will likely be against type but it will be what Ida wants. Whether that's taking her vows, remaining a sister or going on her own it's unclear. But, unlike most of the movie, the frame is centered and Ida is firmly in the middle; after sleeping with the sax player and gaining a new perspective on life Ida is ready for the next chapter of her life, which will likely still include God since she still dresses like a sister and it's all she's known her entire life. We're just not privy to what that destination is because that's when the movie ends.

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YnEoS
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#12 Post by YnEoS » Sun Jun 29, 2014 8:58 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote: All I can say yneos is that your experience is completely the opposite of that of my wife and I. It seemed to cover an immense amount of material -- without ever feeling the least bit rushed. The editing was really quite impressive.
I'll probably watch it a second time at some point since it's been so strongly received here. I caught it on a bit of a whim without having heard much about it, so there's always the possibility that I burdened it with expectations the filmmakers weren't trying to fulfill instead of finding what was there to appreciate. And if my opinion remains unchanged I can perhaps give a more descriptive account of it.

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warren oates
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#13 Post by warren oates » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:25 pm

I have to agree with Jeff, Michael and everyone else who's been praising this film. Here's a gem I wouldn't have seen -- at least not in theaters and not so soon -- were it not for this board and Jeff's endorsement in particular. The only other Paweł Pawlikowski film I'd seen previously was Last Resort, which underwhelmed me. So I was completely unprepared for how very much I liked and admired Ida. As Michael says, it's a quick, quiet, dense 80 minutes that feels longer than it is in a good way. The austerity and inwardness of Pawlikowski's approach are reminiscent of Bresson, but so are the looks and charms of the lead actress who you could easily have fooled me into believing was somehow related to Anne Wiazemsky.

I'd go a little further than Jeff with my appreciation of the cinematography and up the ante to the best films of the period this one depicts. The idiosyncrasy and virtuosity of the framing and precise control of the lighting approaches the work of masters like Antonioni, Bergman and Godard at their 1960s peaks. I'm thinking particularly of films like Il Grido and Vivre Sa Vie. I'd also add that Ida is easily one of the best black and white films I've seen, one of the very best black and white films to be shot on video and one of the finest uses of the Academy ratio.

A couple of interesting related links:

Filmmaker Magazine interview with Paweł Pawlikowski.

The director's personal website where you can stream his documentaries for free.
Last edited by warren oates on Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#14 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:37 pm

I also liked the fact that there were occasional glints of humor (never ha-ha-ha humor, mind you -- just sly and subtle little things) in what on its surface was quite serious-minded.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#15 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:54 pm

That's actually a pretty succinct encapsulation of what Paweł Pawlikowski is like in real life.

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repeat
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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#16 Post by repeat » Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:57 pm

I happened to witness Olaf Möller interviewing PP a couple of weeks ago actually - indeed a really charming (and yes, slyly funny!) guy. I'd never heard of him before, and sadly only managed to catch Last Resort from the accompanying retrospective, but that talk definitely made me want to seek out the rest of his stuff, especially the early documentaries which sounded absolutely fascinating: From Moscow to Pietushki (about the maverick Russian writer Venedikt Erofeev), Dostoyevsky's Travels (emphatically not about the novelist, but his last living descendant, a St. Petersburg tram driver!) and Serbian Epics, a generally (at the time) misunderstood, ironical front-line account of the Bosnian war. How wonderful that they're available online!

Still hoping to get a chance to catch Ida on the big screen on one festival or another later in the year. I liked Last Resort more than some, maybe also partly because of the nice and unexpected surprise of discovering this director I hadn't heard about. I think some people misread it as some kind of an attempt at Loachian pseudo-documentary realism, but there's really a different sort of poetry to it, more of an allegorical feel even. Sadly the DVD seems to have gone out of print...

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#17 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:18 pm

Glad I wasn't just hallucinating those glints of humor...

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#18 Post by YnEoS » Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:49 pm

Caught this a second time and this time around the experience was much more favorable. I think my problem the first time around is I experienced Wanda's personality as mostly being contrastive against Ida, which made the first half of the film quite tiresome to get through. But on my second viewing I noticed a lot more complexity and flux in their relationship that I completely missed the first time around, and attending to these details vastly improved the experience of the film.

Being better situated within the narrative, I have to echo praise that others have already given to the editing and pacing of the film. The narrative is very economical with each shot having a very direct and precise purpose in a way that I normally associates with more faster aggressive montage editing. But the shots distanced from main action which reduces the intensity of the movements, and most shots are given a few extra seconds of breathing room for the pertinent details to gradually call attention to themselves out of their environment. This allows the film to achieve some quite remarkable effects that I normally associate with the long take aesthetic.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#19 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Jul 02, 2014 5:51 pm

"remarkable effects that I normally associate with the long take aesthetic"

I got the same impression. I know I sound like a broken record -- but this is the sort of effect one gets in Ozu and Naruse (not saying Pawlikowski saw either). Active cutting in a way that creates a flowing sense of continuity that gives the impression of virtual long takes....

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#20 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Jul 02, 2014 7:49 pm

YnEoS wrote:Caught this a second time and this time around the experience was much more favorable. I think my problem the first time around is I experienced Wanda's personality as mostly being contrastive against Ida, which made the first half of the film quite tiresome to get through. But on my second viewing I noticed a lot more complexity and flux in their relationship that I completely missed the first time around, and attending to these details vastly improved the experience of the film.
Do you think knowing the reveal made the difference for you the second time around, understanding Wanda's inner turmoil about the past?

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#21 Post by YnEoS » Wed Jul 02, 2014 9:22 pm

Yeah, I would say that was one factor that made a difference. It was easier to contextualize the development of their interactions in the beginning knowing where the film was going.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#22 Post by DeprongMori » Thu Jul 03, 2014 2:46 am

On recommendation of a friend I saw "Ida" this afternoon. It was without a doubt the best new film I've seen in ages. Its story, visual composition, editing, and austere beauty held me in rapt attention, and even awe, throughout. I will likely see it a few more times in the theaters in the next couple weeks while I can, bringing friends to share with whenever possible -- a rarity for me.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#23 Post by adrian333 » Thu Jul 03, 2014 5:27 am

Absolutely fantastic. I saw all of his feature films and the previous cannot compare to this one. Not that My Summer of Love was bad or La femme du Vème wasn’t interesting, but this time Pawlikowski took me completely by surprise - this is a whole new level. It is probably the best new film I saw in years, the only recent film that I can think of to come close to it for me (as different as it may be) is Stranger by the Lake. Ida is indeed comparable with works of masters mentioned here earlier.

I saw it on DVD, but looking forward to watching it again on a big screen next week in Karlovy Vary.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#24 Post by FerdinandGriffon » Thu Jul 03, 2014 9:55 am

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.

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Re: Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)

#25 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jul 03, 2014 10:16 am

With all due respect, FG, i submit that you're (edited) all wet.
Last edited by Michael Kerpan on Thu Jul 03, 2014 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

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