Film Review: Ida (12A) (Poland/Denmark 2013) (Director: Pawel Pawlikowski) (Polish with English Subtitles), Filmhouse, Screen Three, Edinburgh, Wednesday 08.10.2014, 20:20

The film is set in 1960's Poland and at the start the focus is upon a girl called Anna who is understood to be an orphan and is raised in a convent. She is getting close to taking her vows, when the nuns insist she goes to visit her only living relative, an aunt. This leads to her finding out that Anna is not her real name, Ida is, and she is Jewish. The rest of the film follows Ida throughout the impact of this and other subsequent discoveries. I don't wish to saw more of the what occurs. 

What I am about to write I have given careful consideration to. This is due to the fact that I have already emailed about and discussed the film with quite a number of friends and colleagues, and also due to the strength of what I am about to write. I don't like being hyperbolic unless I feel it is in some sense warranted...

This film is the finest film I have seen at the cinema this century. It is a masterpiece. So much so that I contemplated going back tonight to see again, though am now going for a 2nd viewing on Saturday eve. The two people who I was there with are also possibly going to come along again. I would go so far as to say that on 1st viewing, it is one of the finest films I have ever scene. 

The film is compact at 82 minutes, though has a fantastically economical and concise approach to its storytelling, with not a single moment wasted. The film is presented in luminous black & white, and every frame is crisp and staggeringly beautiful. Almost every scene has an implicit dichotomy of purpose and approach between the characters. All of these scenes also carry subtle unspoken meanings about identity (both perceived and self), choice & self-determination and how that fits within the wider community and impacts on life's direction. There is a subtlety throughout the film and nothing is presented in a confrontational manner. There is a passage towards the end of the film that is so delicately beautiful that I had tears in my eyes. 

I had a sense by the end, that in some ways is beyond description, that the film covers all essential elements of life. 

When I did the review of '12 years a slave' at the start of the year I thought it would be nigh on impossible for there to be another film out in the same year which would be as important and as good. How wrong I was. This is truly profound art, that in no way would I wish to sully with a rating.