A homecoming

By E.F.

PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI, a filmmaker and director of the BAFTA-winning "Last Resort" (2000), pays homage to his homeland in his latest film, a stark and moving look at the paradoxes of life in 1960s Poland.

“Ida” follows the travails of an orphan and novitiate nun brought up in a convent. A week before taking her vows she discovers she is Jewish and meets her Aunt—her only living relative and one she never knew she had. The two women then embark on an unsettling journey with far-reaching consequences. Mr Pawlikowski describes it as more “a meditation than a story”—it was made while feeling nostalgic for Poland’s historical landscape. The result, filmed in Polish and in black and white, is an intricate and mesmerizing study of the complexities of life in postwar, communist Poland.

Mr Pawlikowski started his career making documentaries for British television and has since won critical acclaim for a select handful of feature films including the feverish romance “My Summer of Love”. This is his fifth feature and has been selected to represent Poland at the Oscars next year.

Mr Pawlikowski spoke to The Economist about his reasons for making this film and what he hopes audiences will take away from it.

Why did you decide to make a Polish-language film now?

I always tend to make films about what is on my mind at any given time. It wasn’t an intellectual decision; it was more that it felt like now was the right time. I am in my 50s and went back to live in Poland so I felt I had also gone back in time and didn’t really know what to do. I also felt slightly haunted by this time and place when I was a child living there.

Is there something about this story that just wouldn’t work in English?

Polish people are very expressive in a certain way and in English I would not have been able to portray that. I wanted it to be completely authentic and therefore wanted the parts to be played by authentic actors.

The conflict at the film’s heart lies where Poland’s Jewish, Catholic and Communist worlds collide. Would you say that it is an analogy of Poland’s national identity both past and present?

I wouldn’t know. This film wasn’t an intellectual construct. It is something that came from some kind of emotion rather than an intellectual one so I don’t know. If it is, then it is for you to decide. The film is full of paradox, which is how the world is.

The film is shot beautifully and includes lingering camera shots combined with intense close ups. How did you arrive at your stylistic decisions in the film, especially that it be shot in black and white?

It was pretty straightforward. When I was writing it I imagined it in black and white because I remember that time of black and white photography. Also, quite early on I wanted it to be more like a meditation and black and white and filming with a steady look or gaze—rather than getting up and moving the camera—all helped create this effect. I wanted the film to feel like a poetic shorthand of the world rather than an attempt at realism.

There is hardly any dialogue in the film and not one word seems wasted. How did the script evolve?

We had a script at the beginning, which I think I was writing on and off for eight years but it wasn’t serious writing. I tried lots of things to see whether they worked and then, at some point, I got a critical mass and everything came together. This is when I knew I could start making the film. However, this doesn’t mean that I stopped writing it; I continue with the writing when a film starts to become a reality. Quite a few scenes—possibly 40% of the scenes—kept changing. Not the story or relationships, but scenes. The original script is just a basic blueprint.

"Ida" has been referred to as a "film masterpiece" (the New Yorker) and one of the "finest European films in recent memory" (the New York Times). Why do you think it provokes such a strong response?

I don’t know. I suppose the form and the content has something to do with it. It is also about many different things at the same time, which you can’t quite unravel. People try and say it is about Polish Jewish themes or this or that but it is not about any of these things. It is slightly chaotic in a rich territory, which I reduced and made simple. That is its charm. It is quiet and unlike the rest of cinema today which perhaps people like.

Do you feel that living as an expatriate has given you more insight into Poland’s evolving view of its national identity?

No. I am not aware of it in any way. What I do have is a sense of Poland which the contemporary, younger Poles have lost sight of a little bit which is the Poland of the 1960s which I found incredibly exciting and cool. It was a period of great art and a time when communist censorship became weaker. Suddenly the margin of freedom was grabbed with both hands by all kinds of creative people; in theatre, literature, jazz music, and in contemporary classical music—it was just a big flowering in Poland and for me that was a real inspiration.

Has making this film been in any way a cathartic experience for you?

Yes. Very much. The film is definitely a homecoming of some kind; not just about Poland but a certain kind of reality that really hits me. It is the world of my childhood, of my parents and a type of Poland that I hold dear in my imagination.

What are you hoping audiences will take from the film?

That life is paradoxical and beautiful and it is not a walk across the field as the Russians say, and that we should try and sort things out before we die.

"Ida" is out on general release in the UK from September 26th