IDA: A Polish Perspective

The film Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski is admired by critics and viewers around the world. The movie won awards at important international festivals and it was nominated for an Academy Award in the category for Best Foreign Language Film. A glimmer of hope woke in the Poles after winning a golden statue: our cinema is not so bad after all. Unfortunately, not everyone shared this enthusiasm.

The picture is very artistic. It was stylized to refer to the atmosphere of Polish cinema of the 50s and 60s, when the Polish film industry had its golden era. However, as always with such success, the positive comments are equaled by the negative. Many people in Poland didn’t like the movie, and called it anti-Polish. It portrays the Poles in an unfavorable way, as antisemites, and the Poles are accustomed to show history in a good light. There are movies about fictional or real heroes of war, about the Polish nation as a victim of the war, and if the film is about the topic of Jews during the war, the Poles are always assisting Jews in these hard times.

Young people these days are taught to think that during the war, the Poles were only on the right side, and were the biggest victims. However, is it really true that during the Second World War there were only people in Poland who wanted to help, or were there some who supported the Nazi beliefs, and their extermination of Jews? As a matter of fact, the creation of concentration camps wasn’t a Polish idea, it was an initiative of the occupiers. The truth is that, during the war, in the face of mortal danger, nobody is a saint: heroes become criminals, and vice versa. This film is exactly about how dramatic experience can change people, and how a past like that can affect future generations. The movie is not about the “bad Poles”, which is what many people thought in this country – they thought it was insulting to the Poles as a whole.

When it was revealed that Ida would be running as a Polish candidate for the Oscars, discussion began: do we need to promote this film, which is shaming and insulting to Poles? According to many, better movies had been made which would deserve the award. After actually winning the Oscar, discussion flared with even greater force. There were even reviews saying that history was portrayed falsely in the movie.

As one of the Polish critics Robert Wieczorek said, Ida is a film that has gained an understanding of the audience all over the world, and the world is not necessarily aware of the history of our country. The film talks about the universal matters for everyone: dealing with the demons of the past, redemption of sins, faith in God, desire to know life better before offering a life away from people to live in celibacy and seclusion. This is artistic cinema. Ida doesn’t have the ambition of describing history. The story of Ida is an allegory for a universal story, one familiar to all of us: how to deal with past. Sometimes the demons of the past follow us through the years and we have to fight them. We should to stop looking at Ida for historical and political contexts. Saying that Ida is anti-Polish is a misunderstanding.

The film differs from the rest of the emerging movies in Poland. Currently, mostly historical films or comedies are made in this country. Most of them are based on real events, on books or the filmmakers borrowed ideas from already existing movies. These are the movies in color with fast-paced action; some are better, some are worse, but they’re ours. Watching them, the viewer can relax and identify with the characters. Ida is different, the viewer may feel discomforted by the black and white imagery and the unusual (square) aspect ratio. The action is slow, and causes melancholy. One thing is for sure, the film was more successful abroad than in the country in which it was made.

It is a pity that so many people in Poland didn’t appreciate this subtle and beautiful movie. As a person who lives in Poland, I don’t agree with the negative opinions. The film is not only visually beautiful, but also tells a universal story, to which everyone can relate and this is the most important thing in movies.

What is your opinion? Have you seen Ida? Did you enjoy it? Should the movie about this type of subject promote the people of the country concerned? or the task of such a film should be completely different?

(top image source: Memento Films)