IDA (2013) Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
A young girl, set to take her vows to become a nun, is sent to her only living relative in an attempt to find out who she really is and where she comes from.
I spent the better part of 30 minutes trying to assertain when this movie's set. They never come out and mentions a date, but based on technology, a comment the aunt makes about being a prosecutor in the fifties, and talk of "the war", I'm guessig we're somewhere in the mid 60s, early 70s. Ida seems to be around the 16-20 range, so that fits somewhat. Also take into considaration that she must be old enough to actually leagaly be able to take the vows and I'm pretty sure I'm correct (edit: Saw on imdb that it's set in '62, so allmost correct). Side-track, I know, but it was honestly the first thing that I thought of when the film started. On to the more central stuff.
Ida travels to her relatvie, an aunt, and asks her why she never collected her from the orphanage. As an answer, she says that she didn't think Ida would've liked living with her, but I think it's more the aunt's problem than Ida's that prevented the move. In an offhand comment the aunt turns Ida's world upside down when she informes Ida she's jewish by birth, that her family was killed during the war and when Ida want to visit their graves she tells her there isn't any. Cue the begining of the movies main plot wherein the two newly aquainted relatives set out on a road trip to the family's old home in search of the people who can tell them where their family's been hidden.
To me, this is a story of two parts. That Ida should find out where she comes from is of course important and is what drives the plot of the movie, but I don't think that's the primary reason the mother superior thought to send Ida off to her aunt. I think it's about Ida making an informed decision about her future. She was left at a church as an infant, raised in a orphanage run by the church and then sent to a convent where she is when the movie begins. The church is all she has ever known. It's not odd, then, that she would keep doing what she's been doing all her life. The mother superior then, I think, wants her to experience somthing other than what she's allways had, both for her own sake as well for her future work should she come back. If she knows nothing of the outside world, how will she be able to relate to it? The aunt made a comment about it I can agree with, regarding the vows Ida's about to take:
Wanda: Do you have sinful thoughts sometimes?
Wanda: About carnal love?
Wanda: That's a shame. You should try, otherwise what sort of sacrifice are these vows of yours?
If you don't see it as a sacifice (or rather, if you've never exprienced what it is you're giving up), how is it a sacrifice? The answer is that it isn't one. She needs to be thrust into the world she hasn't been part of and get a taste of it, a feel for it. Only then can she make an informed decision about whether she wants to return to her convent or if she thinks she can a better place in another part of the world.
We don't really see what she decides in the end, but now, at least, for better or worse, she can make a choice for herself.