Ida (*****)

Ida is a movie of immense beauty and startling discovery. Unlike most movies we see today, Ida is near-glacial. At times, individual shots seem like they are still photographs, and only as one character moves from one corner to the other do we realize that we are watching something unlike anything else this year. To say it is a miraculous movie is perhaps a bit reaching - but this is without a doubt a story that is absolutely compelling and important.

We meet Anna, a teenage girl living in a convent in Poland. It is sometime in the 1960's. There are dirt roads, few cars, a few birds chirping. The silence becomes a character to itself. Before taking her vows to become a Catholic nun, her Mother Superior advises she meet her Aunt Wanda - long estranged and nearly forgotten about. She obliges.

Her aunt is unlike anything we can expect. She drinks, she is rude and empowered, and she has a secret. Anna was raised as a Jewish girl named Ida, her family long-since deceased. What Anna perhaps envisioned as a simple family meeting becomes a story of discovery as the two women journey to discover what happened. A road movie of sorts, although it it more a journey of inner discovery, both for Anna and Wanda.

The intrigue of this movie comes from a multitude of things, and there is so much to ponder over as the minutes tick by. First of all, we have the unique dynamic between niece and aunt - polar opposites and yet the same in many ways. Both women find ways to deal with their solitude, and yet who is the better person? Ida admits she has never fantasized about boys, she is quiet, she speaks little. To an outsider she would appear a little weird, with her pale skin and dark sunken eyes. Wanda, on the other hand, is a judge of the Communist Party. She loses herself even at work, drifting in and out of reality. She drinks, acts reckless, and at first cares little for her family.

This movie falls into many categories and yet it doesn't fall into any. In a way this is a more modern Holocaust movie in terms of its repercussions on future generations. We have the mystery of Wanda's obsessions with finding the man who sheltered their family during the war. It's coming-of-age as Ida meets a jazz musician with an allure she can't quite put her finger on. Is she wrong for beginning to doubt her devotion to God, or is this a healthy part of becoming a woman?

In stark black and white, the film is a beautiful demonstration of purposeful cinematography. Characters are framed so low in the shot that oftentimes we barely even see their mouths moving as they speak. The camera allows them space within each frame, perhaps emphasizing the loneliness these people feel or maybe just to remind these characters that God is always present...

At no more than 82 minutes, Ida still works very slowly, and the film is so calculated and precise that I don't think any moment is uncalled for or unnecessary. Ida will not be a film for everyone, but it succeeds on so many levels that it's no wonder it is on the shortlist for the Academy Award for Foreign Film.

(Awards potential: Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Film)