When a black-and-white film from Poland, spare in style, about a young woman about to become a nun, wins more than 20 international awards, you know something is going on. Ida is the first film the director Pawel Pawlikowski has made in the country of his birth; he came to Britain nearly four decades ago, when he was a teenager, and now lives in Paris. This film, which is set in 1962, draws on his childhood memories of Poland: initially it seems simple, at times almost a series of tableaux, but soon develops narrative and emotional depth. The central figure (Agata Trzebuchowska) is an open-faced young postulant who has decided to move forward to her vows. The mother superior listens to her decision then counsels some time outside the convent with her family to reflect. The girl, though, h
25 September 2014, The Tablet
Beyond the walls
Ida
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