Numero Uno On My "Best Films Of All Time" List !!!

"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."-J Cocteau
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Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida (2013) is undoubtedly the VERY BEST of the hundreds of films that I've viewed as a film fanatic. This film is just NUMERO UNO on my all time best films list.

Although the overt theme of the film is the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, the screenplay only uses this as a vehicle to examine another theme, namely, "self discovery". For both Ida and her aunt Wanda, this film is about a path of self discovery that they traveled together. For Ida , the path led to discovering the story of her origins and experiencing life outside of the convent, and then apparently returning to the convent to then take her vows as a nun. For Wanda, who built a great life for herself in post-WWII Poland by becoming a state prosecutor, and then advancing to become a judge, the path was one of revisiting the horrors of the past, and then not being able to cope with the past, and then finally committing suicide.

A remarkable aspect of this film is Ida's apparently "emotionless" and "flat" reaction to all the really remarkable things that she learned about her family history, and the radical experiences that she had outside the convent, such as exhuming and then re-burying her parents remains, and having a very brief romantic encounter with the young, handsome saxophone player. Although a superficial analysis of the character Ida's apparent lack of emotional display to the radically new things that she learned and experienced might be that this was just an example of poor acting and poor direction, a deeper analysis reveals this not to be the case. Ida's emotional demeanor is quite appropriate for a woman who has lived within the cloistered confines of a convent since her infancy. She has learned and is practicing what is known in Buddhism as "spiritual equanimity", that is, staying spiritually "centered" and at peace with oneself in the face of any events transpiring in the world around you. It is this "spiritual reserve" that carries Ida through the disruptive news and experiences outside of the convent.

The film poignantly contrasts Ida's spiritual equanimity with the character Wanda, Ida's aunt. Although Wanda has achieved great professional success in her life in the aftermath of the horrors of WWII , she apparently is lacking in spiritual equanimity altogether. This is evidenced in the film by her advanced alcoholism, and her sexually promiscuous lifestyle. Wanda has found "inner peace" in the face of her WWII experiences at the bottom of a bottle of vodka, and in having apparently random, transient sexual encounters. When Wanda is forced, by virtue of Ida's unexpected visit from the convent, to revisit the horrors of WWII, she can no longer find inner peace through alcohol and random sex, and this finally leads her to commit suicide.

Comparing and contrasting then the characters of Ida and Wanda in this film, we see the filmmaker definitely advocating to the viewer that equanimity, and peace of mind in one's life comes from spiritual strength from within one's self, and not in the external vices, and distractions that the world has to offer us. This is an especially timely and appropriate message in our modern times that are so dominated by a "trivial consumerism" that so easily makes available to us all sorts of "quick fixes" to calm the emotional and visceral distresses that we experience within ourselves., from the candy bar that is in front of us at the checkout stand in the supermarket, to the shiny new car at the car dealership, to the list of virtual "friends" that we have on our Facebook page.

Perhaps inadvertently, this film also is very supportive of the Roman Catholic Church and its practices, in the face of modern criticism that the Church is too stepped in symbolism, in abstruse formal practices, and is experiencing moral decay from within (for instance, the pedophilia scandal of recent times). In the character of Ida, this film give a big "thumbs up" to the RC Church, as a religious institution where genuine and sincere spirituality is taught, practiced, and is ultimately achievable. I am not saying that this film convinced me to look at the RC CHurch in this new light, nor that this filmmaker even consciously wanted to make a such a positive promotion of the RC Church as one of the goals, or "messages" in this film. I am only saying that the apparent sincere, and genuine, and enduring spiritually of the character of the student nun Ida in this film, as exemplified by her calm demeanor, her spiritual equanimity, in the face of her "earth shaking" experiences outside the convent is at least an implicit confirmation of the spiritual validity of the RC Church and its teachings. The fact that Ida apparently returned to the Church at the end of the film, in spite of her experiences in the outside world, also implicitly carries the message that a person with proper spiritual training will choose spiritually over the material pleasures of the world in the end.

The storyline in this film is quite innovative, very well conceived, and quite well detailed in the screenplay. There are no unreal "coincidences" in the storyline, and the only "hole" that I could detect in the storyline is the unexplained appearance of the young, handsome saxophone player at Wanda's funeral, seemingly ready for an encounter with Ida. Nevertheless, for such an innovative and complex storyline, the screenplay is very "tight", and well thought out nonetheless.

The cinematography is a real strong point of this film. The use of black and white photography emphasizes the sober and somber atmosphere of the film. There is a fair amount of off center framing in this film, that is used for appropriate dramatic effect. The variable lighting, sometimes bright, sometimes shadowed, was also used for appropriate dramatic effect. The sometimes radical editing brings the viewer abruptly to a new scene with very different lighting, with a very different location, and with a .very different emotional tenor, again with appropriate dramatic effect. The contrast in scenes in the countryside, with scenes in the city, with scenes inside the convent were also done with appropriate dramatic effect.

For me, Ida (2013) is the greatest film of all times.

20 Stars !!! 20 Stars !!! 20 Stars !!!