Pawel Pawlikowski

After two striking British dramas (Last Resort and My Summer of Love) and a clever French mystery (The Woman in the Fifth), filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski returns home to Poland to tell a simple story that bursts with deeper meaning. It's a minor masterpiece, shot in pristine black and white in striking locations, anchored by provocative themes and beautifully textured acting. As it explores themes of history and faith, the film grabs hold of the audience in often startlingly resonant ways.

It's set in the early 1960s, as the young novice Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) comes of age in the isolated countryside convent where she was raised since early childhood. Her mother superior (Halina Skoczynska) tells her that she needs to learn about her past before she can take the vows to become a nun, so Anna heads off to find her only living relative, Aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). The first thing Anna discovers is that her real name is Ida and her parents were actually Jewish. Since Wanda never knew how they died, shea agrees to travel with Anna to the family's village to try and get some answers. But the local father-and-son farmers (Jerzy Trela and Adam Szyszkowski) are oddly reluctant to tell them the whole story.

Yes, Pawlikowski is exploring his nation's complex history, a complicated swirl of personal responsibility entangled with politics and religion. Anna's own story relates back to the days when Nazis overran Poland, and the Jewish baby Ida became the Catholic Anna to protect her from the concentration camps. But learning all of this makes Anna question what she should believe: the faith of her parents or the one she was taught in the convent? Meanwhile, Wanda has her own difficult past to deal with. As a former judge who helped prosecute criminals from the Soviet occupation, she's just as troubled by what she has always believed to be the truth.

Continue reading: Ida Review

One-time novelist Tom (Hawke) travels from America to Paris to reconnect with his ex-wife (Chuillot) and his 6-year-old daughter (Papillon), but is immediately confronted with a restraining order. He's also robbed of his luggage and left in a cafe on the edge of town, where the waitress (Kulig) and owner (Guesmi) offer him a room and a job as a night watchman. Then he meets the alluring Margit (Scott Thomas) at a literary party, and she begins to take his mind off his troubles.

Continue reading: The Woman In The Fifth Review