By William Wolf

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Add “Ida,” written and directed by Polish-born filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, to films probing the aftermath of the horrendous Holocaust years. Shown in austere getting-under-your-skin black and white, the film is a haunting story strengthened by the simplicity of its telling and performances that are thoroughly involving and poignant.

Agata Trzebuchowska plays Ida, who has been raised in a convent in Poland, is devout and about to take her vows to become a nun. But suddenly she is told about the existence of an aunt whom she should visit. Wanda (Agata Kulesza), the aunt, has never come to see her. Somewhat puzzled, off Ida goes on this strange trip. Wanda coldly breaks the news to Ida that she is really Jewish and was saved from the slaughter of Jews in Poland. It is now 1962 and after first about to send Ida right back to the convent, Wanda has a change of heart and she and Ida start on a journey to find out exactly what happened to Ida’s father and mother, who was Wanda’s sister.

The personal inquiry will uncover the brutal, sad result, but not before Ida and Wanda have encounters with those who knew of the fate, and even a meeting with the regretful perpetrator. The story is one more devastating look at the complicity of those Poles participating in the extermination of Jews and the acquisition of their property.

But the film is much more than that. It is also a study of two women, Ida, who will have to grapple with her faith in light of what she is learning, and Wanda, who struggles to come to terms with the past and its grim revelations as well as her own life.

Wanda, given a riveting portrayal by Kulesza, was a judge in the postwar period of Communist Poland, and remarking that she was known as Red Wanda, she indicates cynicism about her role that included condemning some to die as enemies of the people. She survived the war fighting in the underground and even that experience has left her pondering in her state of disillusionment whether it was worth it.

She has become an alcoholic, and she sleeps around, desperate for contact but not caring much about with whom that contact is. She is a very sad, embittered person with no viable future.

Wanda exposes Ida to a taste of such a life, and Ida, as unassumingly played, is a picture of primness and reserve in her novice’s habit, but not without curiosity. Wanda views Ida’s becoming a nun as wasting her life, but Ida persists in her beliefs. However, when an attractive musician turns up (portrayed by Dawid Ogrodnik) and she and Wanda go to a dance to hear the music of his band, it is clear that there is temptation, with unspoken feelings of sexuality. What will Ida do, continue toward taking her vows or succumb to earthly pleasures? Or perhaps both with pleasure as a prelude to her decision?

Faith plays a major part in the unfolding of the story. A pat fictional ploy would be for Ida to suddenly chuck Catholicism and embrace her Jewish roots. But that would go against her total upbringing even though Wanda challenges her belief in God given the suffering inflicted under His watch.

The constantly mesmerizing story is told economically and there is nothing in it to alleviate its overall sadness or the spell it casts. “Ida” emerges to stand on its own as an important film along with other films digging into some of the same issues. A Music Box Films release. Reviewed May, 28, 2014.

  

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