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WARNING: "ending" spoilers below
I'd say that the ending is necessary as the film states something to the effect of: the Soviet science community wishes humans to wake up and not destroy the world. So no complaints about the end, but if I had my dithers I would've ended it on an even bleaker note than the film started on.
Oh, regarding Dead Man's Letters being reminiscent of Stalker, I didn't see it myself...other than the use of monochromatic film in the beginning of Stalker, at least for me the emotions both film's produced were completely different.

But you know what film this really did remind me of? Visitor of a Museum (1989) and not because of the museum tie-in but because of the whole dismal post apocalyptic world that is explored. Not surprising both movies are directed by the same director. Visitor of a Museum was made a few years later and plays like an epilogue or a sequel. Worth watching.
I'm a big fan of the ending.

WARNING: spoilers below
I like the concept that, even though Larsen was finally able to make a positive impact in the post-apocalyptic world (inspiring the kids to leave and find civilization elsewhere), it's still possible that they may all perish and that his efforts may be for nothing. The slight bit of hope comes as a relief to all the depressing scenes from earlier, yet one which comes with a downside.


I think that, in addition to the monochromatic film used, Stalker also has an undercurrent of nuclear disasters bubbling underneath the surface, one which is heightened by how the toxic chemicals in the area the film was shot in arguably lead to the real-life deaths of Tarkovsky and two of the three main actors in it. Different themes run through both films, but I think it's definitely clear that Lopushansky is a prodigy of Tarkovsky in some ways.

I've heard of Visitor of a Museum, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Given how much I love this film though, I have a feeling it would be up my alley.
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I forgot the opening line.


Lawrence of Arabia - 1962

Directed by David Lean

Written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson
Based on Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

Starring Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif
Jack Hawkins, Claude Rains & José Ferrer

Lawrence of Arabia is a magnificent, wonderful and magical film that defies all boundaries of reason and expectation for how interesting, exciting and entertaining it is to watch. Upon first seeing it, I fell in love with it - most probably some time around my mid-teens, unexpectedly being carried away by the preternatural combination of other-worldly score and panoramic vision which turns the desert into one of nature's beautiful creations. Through this we absolutely understand why it's so seductive to the subject of this film - T. E. Lawrence, once an army officer and later a writer of some fame who became known for his part in the Great Arab Revolt - an event which happened during the latter half of the First World War. It turned Peter O'Toole into an instant star, and saw David Lean at the utter peak of his career, coming after the much-heralded Bridge on the River Kwai, and just before Doctor Zhivago. Not even a gargantuan running time of 227 minutes could blunt it's popularity and esteem.

The film starts with a prologue showing us Lawrence's death in a motorcycle accident, and the significant dignitaries who attend his memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral in 1935. We then go back to 1916, where he's a disgruntled officer making maps for British Forces, learning about an Arab revolt and having a Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains) convince General Murray (Donald Wolfit) to send him to act as an adviser to Arab Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) in his fight against the Turks. On his way he meets the distinguished Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) - a man he'll share a contentious relationship with at first, but whom he'll later become quite close to. Lawrence convinces Faisal to attack the Turkish-occupied city of Aqaba by crossing the deadly and "uncrossable" Nefud desert - picking up another ally, Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) on the way. This victory and others increases his standing in the Arab community, and his fame spreads when war correspondent Jackson Bentley (Arthur Kennedy) starts to follow him and write articles about Lawrence for English-speaking people back home. Lawrence is a complicated "hero" however, one seemingly with bloodlust, masochism, and egotistical mania.

I've never seen such an assured and instinctively cinematic performance from a newcomer as I see in Peter O'Toole's portrayal of Lawrence here. He'd be nominated for the one Oscar he really should have won during a long and storied career, but ended up losing to Gregory Peck who had played Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. O'Toole would go on to be nominated another 7 times, always in a leading role, and never win a competitive Academy Award in his lifetime. This was one of the great screen performances in the history of film, and nothing can take that away from him. It's really one of my favourite performances, and absolutely spellbinding. Meanwhile, Alec Guinness is unfortunately in a difficult position in retrospect, being a pale-skinned Brit playing a dark-skinned Arab. Good to see then, that Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn were called on, preventing this film from being extensively 'whitewashed'. Sharif would be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar - beaten by Ed Begley appearing in a rendition of Sweet Bird of Youth. Great actors doing great things, but all and sundry are nearly drowned out by the sheer amount of explosive energy delivered from O'Toole.

Shooting this in the deserts of Spain, Jordan and Morocco was the experienced and brilliant cinematographer Freddie Young - doing things here, in such an immersive way, that still impress the eye all these years later. We find ourselves looking at desert most of the time during this 4 hour film, but absolutely no shot looks exactly like another shot, and we're treated to mirages and a derailed steam engine locomotive seemingly heading straight for the camera - two shots which keep on impressing me over and over again. Young won the first of his three Oscars for his work on Lawrence of Arabia, and his other two would come soon after - in 1966 where he worked again with Lean on Doctor Zhivago, and 1971, once again with Lean for the epic Ryan's Daughter. He was also nominated for Ivanhoe (1952) and a film that I really like a lot, but a lot of others don't, Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). Let me emphasize again that Lawrence of Arabia is a stunningly beautiful film, and there's hardly a moment that goes by where we're not being treated to something spectacular. It brings the desert to us and envelops us in it's bright majesty, all the while sweeping us forward sure-footedly on camels and in Bedouin tents.

The very next aspect of brilliance that will automatically come to mind when thinking about Lawrence of Arabia is it's sweeping and majestic score, dominated by strings and percussion that bring to mind an Arabian style of music while also being something of it's own heavenly embodiment. It's one of the most memorable in history, and was voted 3rd Best Score ever in the American Film Institute's Greatest Ever American film scores. Maurice Jarre, who was fairly unknown at the time, was offered the chance to score this film only when William Walton and Malcolm Arnold became unavailable - Lean had heard what he'd done with Sundays and Cybèle, impressing him. Jarre won the first of three Oscars for this, a masterwork of music, and would later, much like Freddie Young, win Oscars for collaborating with David Lean on Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India. He was nominated six other times.* Combine the score, film footage and acting and you're on another level of filmmaking above most others.

Obviously editing is an all-encompassing discipline that affects an entire film, but there's one transition that everyone talks about with Lawrence of Arabia, and it's one I'm quite fond of as well. When Lawrence blows out the flame from his match, and we immediately switch to a large setting sun in the desert - it's not something that's likely to be visually interlocked shot-to-shot, and in fact it's jarring, but it works incredibly well. It transports us, surprises us and signifies a quantum shift in the story. Anne V. Coates - nominated for an Oscar 5 times in her career had her one win for Lawrence of Arabia. The film also won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration to go along with Best Director for Lean and Best Picture. It was Lean's second win after Bridge of the River Kwai and meant Lawrence won 7 out of it's 10 nominations, quite deservedly, along with 4 BAFTAS (O'Toole picking up Best Actor in that format) and 6 Golden Globes. The film picked up many other wins around the world. To Kill a Mockingbird's screenplay, by Horton Foote beat Lawrence's for an Oscar, meaning Robert Bolt would miss out on his first (he won twice later in his career.) Michael Wilson, who had first stab at it before it was rewritten would receive an amended co-nomination in 1995 - he had been blacklisted at the time.

Lawrence of Arabia is part of popular culture now, and the main reason a figure like T. E. Lawrence is likely to be remembered beyond those who specialize in early Twentieth Century history. It's a film that always surprises me for how easy it is to watch versus how long it is - for there are numerous films I really like that I struggle with if they shift northwards of the three hour runtime mark. There's just something so pleasing about it's rhythm that it lulls me to the point where it's approaching end always surprises me - and that's with listening to all the Entr'acte and Intermission business, which is the one thing that shows it up for it's age. It's a film that caught my intrigue from Lawrence's "The trick is not minding that it hurts" comment, which I found especially clever, and which has been picked up upon by other filmmakers and screenwriters. Watching it now, I'm reminded that my youthful enthusiasm for it has carried over into my middle age. I remember being further interested in all of this when reading the play "Ross" in high school, a play by Terence Rattigan that debuted in 1960.

So, what does this visually sun-drenched, operatic and epic tale tell us about the film's version of Lawrence? He was an outsider amongst his own people - born in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was an erudite man who perhaps viewed himself, and was viewed as, a messianic figure for his tactical and strategic cleverness and his wise countenance. That his ultimate failing lay in his bloodthirsty and passionate fascination with death, and a belief in utopian dreams that had no hope at all of becoming realised realities as he thought they might. By the end of the film he seems to be a lone hand playing against the might and superiority of the British Empire, unable to quell a thousand years of tribal enmity and mistrust. He was even more of an outcast, when considering his sexuality and masochism, than he was for his insubordination and individuality. He was brave, and thus respected amongst a people who valued courage above all else. All of this is not to say that the film provides an accurate depiction of what the man was really like - as in all biographical accounts put to film, it dramatizes real events. It's a complex portrait painted on a grand canvas, and one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 20th Century.



*Jarre's other Oscar nominations were for : Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray (1962), For the song "Marmalade, Molasses & Honey" in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Message (1976), Witness (1985), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988) and Ghost (1990)
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Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Fat Girl (2001) -


I first watched this one about 2-3 years ago, and I felt it was batting on being a very good film up until the ending, which killed much of the film's power. I kept searching for a big thematic reason for why the film ended in such a shocking and provocative way, but the more I thought about it, the less it worked.
WARNING: spoilers below
In my opinion, having something far worse happen to Anaïs in the ending overshadows what happened to Elena throughout the film. And while overshadowing a crime with a far more heinous crime can work in the right context, I think what Elena went through in the film is far more common and relatable for girls her age than surviving an encounter with a serial murderer/rapist, like Anaïs goes through in the final act.
I forget if I brought it up before, but while endings usually don't matter a whole lot to me, I think this is a case where the ending erases much of the film's strengths. Sadly, I was left kind of disappointed when I finished the film since it could've been a much better film if the final five minutes were cut. To give the film credit where it's due though, in spite of the ending, most of what comes before that is really well-done. Elena's and Fernando's relationship was handled really well (Fernando pressuring for her to have sex with him sticks out as being appropriately disturbing) and some of the scenic shots, particularly during the beach scenes, were lovely to look at. Still though, I'd probably call the film a failure, albeit a highly ambitious and daring one. Which makes it kind of interesting to a certain extent. It just could've been far more than that.

Next Up: Ida



Let the night air cool you off
An Autumn Afternoon

Another masterpiece by one of the masters of the medium. There are directors where you can watch a small portion of any of their films and point out quickly who directed it, but is there anybody who stands out as uniquely themselves as Ozu? The camera refuses to move and we get tight shots of hallways, we get closeups of the stoic Chishu Ryu facing tough decisions, of family members moving in different directions, of an impending loneliness. So many directors want to wow you with where they can move their camera to show you the thing they had hidden just out of sight, but Ozu does the opposite, he puts all of his attention to everything he has on screen and the only thing that can change in the shot is human movement. The climax of this film really did a number on me. From the point that Michiko found out that the man she had really wanted to marry was already betrothed to another on, I was all up in my emotions.



My reviews will be small as I'm not going to type a lot or format on my phone. Just know that I did watch them.



Valley of the Dolls
(1967)

First I want to say, Sharon Tate portraying an adult film star and they didn't put you in a Drug Treatment program but a mental hospital.

Valley of the Dolls is about the promiscuity and drug use of a few women in the entertainment business in 1960s New York.

It's not a film I hate, as Citizen Rules thought I would, but at times it was boring. Remember this is my opinion of it. Again it's not terrible but more not my genre. I can understand why CR enjoys it. Patty Duke was very good in it but she is enjoyable to watch.



Valley of the Dolls
(1967)

First I want to say, Sharon Tate portraying an adult film star and they didn't put you in a Drug Treatment program but a mental hospital.

Valley of the Dolls is about the promiscuity and drug use of a few women in the entertainment business in 1960s New York.

It's not a film I hate, as Citizen Rules thought I would, but at times it was boring. Remember this is my opinion of it. Again it's not terrible but more not my genre. I can understand why CR enjoys it. Patty Duke was very good in it but she is enjoyable to watch.
Fair enough I do expect it to finish last so not surprised people aren't into it like I am but I find it a blast to watch. At least you can you've seen the real Sharon Tate now. Or had you ever seen a movie with her before?



Fair enough I do expect it to finish last so not surprised people aren't into it like I am but I find it a blast to watch. At least you can you've seen the real Sharon Tate now. Or had you ever seen a movie with her before?
Nope just movies about Manson murdering her.

This film is as old as I am.

For late 60s, I enjoy horror movies.



I did find it interesting one of the best vocalist sings the main theme song - Dionne Warwick. Some of the minor actors looked familiar too.

I read on imdb that Richard Dreyfuss was uncredited.



In regards to Sharon Tate, yes I have seen two that she is uncredited, Rosemary's Baby and Barabbas.



In regards to Sharon Tate, yes I have seen two that she is uncredited, Rosemary's Baby and Barabbas.
I've seen her in The Fearless Vampire Killers it's a comedy horror by Roman Polanski, maybe you'd like that? I didn't finish the movie myself I thought it was a bit silly. And I seen her in The Wrecking Crew with Dean Martin and of course Valley of the Dolls.



To Live and Die in L.A.
(1985)

First to say, I don't know much about 'money laundrying ' except I know it's counterfeit money or filtering it in a way it's untraceable to the authorities. Now I know a bit more.

It's about a secret service officer trying to catch a criminal who is involved with several illegal activities. His partner was killed by a terrorist. Willem Defoe is always great in films, especially the bad guy. He's young in this movie as well.

This is similar to other cop movies from the 80s, so if you enjoy them (which I do) you will enjoy this. It's more serious than Lethel Weapon, Tango and Cash and Beverly Hills Cop.

WARNING: "spoiler question" spoilers below
If I'm right and I'm pretty sure I am, after William Defoe launders the counterfeit money, he drives off, in what seems to be a 1984 Mazda RX 7. I knew someone who had the same make and color featured in the film. So if someoneknows cars can you confirm.


Nice pick too!



I forgot the opening line.


Fat Girl (À ma soeur!) - 2001

Directed by Catherine Breillat

Written by Catherine Breillat

Starring Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo
Arsinée Khanjian & Romain Goupil

I first sought out Fat Girl because it was a title swirling around cinematic circles as an important turn of the century title from a serious French filmmaker (who also happened to be a professor of auteur filmmaking and a novelist) - Catherine Breillat. I avoided reading anything about it so it would surprise me, so during my first viewing I kind of felt like I was watching a horror film and not a film about adolescent sexuality. This is not a film about being erotic or sensual, just as girls of 15 and 12 know little about sensuality and eroticism - and a girl's virginity often comes down to being something to get past, and has little to do with sexual desire. In a man's case, it very often comes down to lust alone, leaving the emotional complexity as pieces to be picked up by the girl after the guy has come and gone. In Fat Girl we have two sisters, Elena (Roxane Mesquida) and Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) who are 15 and around 12 respectively and although they are often cruel to each other they share a tight bond. Elena is attractive, which feeds her self-esteem helped by the guys who see her, while Anaïs is decidedly rotund, dumpy and unpleasant. Their parents insist on the two going everywhere together while on vacation, hoping that will cramp Elena's style and keep her at her best behavior.

While on vacation the girls meet Fernando (Libero De Rienzo) who is studying at university to become a lawyer. Despite the troubling age difference and the fact that Anaïs is right there, Fernando wastes no time getting intimate with Elena while Anaïs finds herself a regular third wheel with the two of them. Although introduced to the pair's parents (played by Arsinée Khanjian and French filmmaker Romain Goupil) Fernando soon finds himself sneaking into the pair's room at night, working hard at getting Elena undressed and pressuring her to have sex with him while all Anaïs can do is lay there and uncomfortably listen. After pledging his love and threatening to relieve himself with someone else if she refuses, Fernando eventually persuades Elena to have anal sex, which she finds quite painful. The intimacy encourages Elena to be more familiar with him, and soon Fernando has convinced her to give her virginity to him after he gives her a valuable ring and promised his hand in marriage. As the two have sex the next night, Anaïs cries as she hears the two of them. Fernando's mother discovers that he's stolen one of her rings, and that in turn leads to the discovery by Elena's mother as to what's been going on. The vacation is over, the girls are in tears and as their father had already departed, the three embark on the long journey home by themselves.

Of course Fat Girl doesn't end with the three of them unscathed, and we're treated to an ending that I at first assumed was a dream sequence - such is it's brutality and "out of nowhere" surprise. The first time I saw this film I was not the least bit bothered, because I was confidently assuming we were about to cut back to Anaïs and discover the horror is simply her fantasy. It's not, and on reflection the horror we witness here fits this film as a whole. I've never been as uncomfortable as I was watching Fernando pressure 15-year-old Elena sexually, and Fat Girl doesn't skimp visually, showing us shocking explicit nudity. I already felt uncomfortably like a voyeur, and at the same time disgusted with Fernando, and exposing even more of their intimate moments to us really grabs us and puts us squarely where Anaïs is - having to experience what feels so wrong to Elena and doubly wrong concerning her presence. Fat Girl doesn't hold back, and Catherine Breillat shows a lot of guts to put what she has into the film without knowing the reception it would get. Fortunately, the film has enough artistic merit to assuage any suspicion of exploitation or pornography.

This film and it's long uncut scenes in the bedroom have been filmed by a favourite cinematographer of mine - Yorgos Arvanitis, who is most famous for being the regular director of photography for Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos. He was cinematographer on The Travelling Players, and as far as Breillat is concerned was DP on her previous film Romance and her subsequent Anatomy of Hell. Everything in this film is carefully framed and Arvantitis does a great job with the more intimate scenes - he's often not credited personally despite how great the film is visually and how often that factor is mentioned. When the characters hit the road at the end, there's a great sense of how vulnerable they all are by placing their car near looming trucks which often box it in. I also enjoyed how often the camera focuses on the expressions of Anaïs, which often tell us as much as the lines she's delivering. The actress Anaïs Reboux, discovered at a McDonald's, never appeared in much else and seems to have been plucked out of obscurity due to the perfection of her for this specific part.

There's no real music in the film, but at times Anaïs sings songs that I at first thought must have been real songs she'd heard but were in fact creations of Catherine Breillat with interestingly dour lyrics. Aside from that, David Bowie's "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" booms in late and makes as much of a startling impression as the interloper who brings the film to such a brutal close. It seems spending so much time quietly contemplating and watching seductions makes the sudden imposition of rock music startling. The song is also used in the trailer, and I found it to be a very interesting choice - as is contemplating just how purposeful the choice of song was. It's an "in-movie" kind of musical imposition, for it comes at a time when Elena and Anaïs's mother is trying to drown out the unpleasantness that sometimes descends on an uncomfortable car trip. Not a lot else encroaches on the two young actresses and Breillat's direction, for which she was awarded a Manfred Salzgeber Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, a France Culture Award at Cannes, a Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and a MovieZone Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

This honest and unflinching look at adolescent sexuality isn't a comfortable watch, but it's thought-provoking and meaningful. Anaïs, who has a deep craving for romance but takes a very critical stance when it comes to her sister (who she basically calls a "whore") is someone who is more considered when it comes to losing her virginity, because she's more removed from having to deal with desire, male seduction and the added pressure of being older. She maintains that she'd rather lose her virginity to someone she doesn't love, and will deny being raped after a man has forced himself upon her. She finds what her sister goes through very painful because she's not confused by Fernando's persuasion like Elena is, and although she is younger she can see what's going on more plainly and it seems to sadden her. In the meantime the parents seem to be lost in a world of their own, and no help at all to their daughters until matters are out of hand. Breillat explores all of this through an unflinching gaze, unexpectedly being visually explicit, and also introducing unexpected violence. It creates a memorable viewing experience.

I'm kind of surprised there wasn't more protestation over Fat Girl - it's not as if Breillat is immune to controversy, as it's followed her around because she's very apt to go places other filmmakers don't dare. It was banned in Canada for a while, but otherwise the film community has accepted this film, probably because it has such artistic merit, and is saying something honest about youth sex that shines a light on the way things are for young girls in the world around us. Her cleverness was in using Elena and Anaïs as the two opposite sisters - one with inner beauty, the other with outer beauty - and showing us how either one deals with the first overt sexual experiences that happen to them. The last words of the film are from Anaïs, and they are defiantly telling us that if we don't believe what she says then she doesn't care. I agree that guys who apply severe psychological pressure and tell awful lies, promising love, are in their own way a kind of rapist. When I had to sit through the uncomfortable moments of Fernando's "seduction" I felt like I was witnessing an underage rape scene, and it mattered little if Elena consented in the end - especially considering her age. That Anaïs had to go through it as well made it doubly worse, especially considering that to her the lies had no power. This film however, is very powerful - and makes me want to see more of Catherine Breillat's films.




2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Ship of Fools

This was a film that I had a hope would be a nice under the radar film, but it doesn't deliver because there seems to be little to no charm in hardly any of the characters, aside from the narrating dwarf who I really liked. His intro at the beginning was cool and if I cared about the rest of the film the ending would have been too. It was very long and drawn out and I just felt the need to clock check way too much. The story itself just felt straight up bland to me too, which was a bummer because a setting on a ship with a lot of interesting characters would have been a hoot and a half. But I don't think Kramer really delivered. Probably something that I will just flat out forget about relatively soon.





The Uninvited (1944)

I enjoyed the The Uninvited...and like last time I watched it over a decade ago I find myself both impressed and saddened.

There are two aspects of the film that caught my attention: One was the ambiance that the film creates with the isolated mansion perched percarisly on a cliff side over looking the ocean. I was fascinated by the isolation and the loneliness of the country side setting. The other aspect was Gail Rusell. She has this look of forlorn lost-ness, like someone adrift and in need of an anchor to keep her from floating out to sea. I've seen her in a couple of other films (Angel and the Badman and Wake of the Red Witch) and she has this quality that comes across the screen that makes her special. Gail Russell lead a troubled life and it always makes me sad to think about her and the way she ended.

Back to the film, as Siddon noted the cinematography, score and sets are top notch and make the film a stand out. I personally liked the character played by Donald Crisp who was Stella's father. He's a signpost with his closed-mouth behavior telling us there's something terribly wrong with the mansion or something wrong with his daughter. He sets the tone of danger and suspension with his cloistered behaviour. I have to agree that the character Holloway (Cornelia Otis Skinner ), a woman who owns a treatment center seems tacked on and that part of the story where Stella is sent against her will to the treatment center seems a bit clumsy.

I really liked The Uninvited, it's an impressive film from 1944. And it's an import film as it's the first serious ghost haunting movie to be made by Hollywood.
I will write my review later, but this is more or less where I stand with this film. Maybe a tad less enthusiastic, but still.



To Live and Die in L.A.
(1985)

If I'm right and I'm pretty sure I am...William Defoe....drives...what seems to be a 1984 Mazda RX 7. I knew someone who had the same make and color featured in the film. So if someoneknows cars can you confirm.[/spoilers]

I just watch the movie and the black sports car Defoe drove was a Ferrari. I believe it was a 308 GT Ferrari like the one drove in Miami Vice.



I forgot the opening line.


Ida - 2013

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Written by Pawel Pawlikowski & Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Starring Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska & Dawid Ogrodnik

Ida patiently descends on you like snow, greeting you with a flourish by unveiling achingly beautiful shots, one after another, endlessly inventive and incredibly well-framed. It's visual poetry, pleasing to the eye while at the same time being especially spare and straightforward. One of the film's most striking features is it's simplicity and it's barren locations, with very little extraneous material like props or features that would ordinarily decorate a set. There's no way you can't take away from the film a sense that this is a desolate place in a political, moral and spiritual sense - as well as literal one. This is the 1960s Poland the director is returning to. Paweł Pawlikowski left his native Poland when he was 14, in the early 1970s while the country was still ruled by a Soviet-friendly communist regime. His documentaries of the late 1980s and early 1990s examined the likes of Russian figures and the Bosnian War, before his transition to fiction with Twockers in 1998. With Ida, he comes home.

Ida begins with Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) departing a convent to spend time with an aunt she's never met before, Wanda (Agata Kulesza) - a compulsory action before taking her vows. Anna, an orphan, immediately learns much about herself - it turns out she's actually Jewish, and that her mother and father died during the war years. Her name is actually Ida. Wanda turns out to be a judge who used to be a high-profile prosecutor, sending enemies of the state to their deaths. She's hard-drinking, a smoker and sleeps around a great deal - the complete opposite to the abstinent Anna/Ida. The two agree to track down the young novitiate's parent's grave, which leads them to the people who were hiding them during the occupation - and the man who ended up killing both of them. Wanda reveals that she had a son who was also killed. After agreeing not to make claims on what was once their house, the pair are taken to the place where they are buried, and after the bones are dug up they take them to the burial plot of the family to inter them there. When Anna/Ida returns to the convent, Wanda isn't able to deal with this past and the emptiness her niece's departure has left - she commits suicide. This leaves Anna/Ida to try her lifestyle like Wanda suggested, before making her final decision.

There are no melodramatic outbursts in Ida - the tragedy and pain are revealed to us in a very cold manner, befitting the cold and passionless place the Poland of the 1960s seems to be. The only warmth generated is in the slow, painful process of Anna and Wanda finding a way to reach each other - a process that germinates when both parties are holding the bones of their loved ones. There's a lot of repressed pain here, and it has descended over the country as a whole. Pawlikowski has chosen a curious character to base Wanda on - the notorious Polish prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus, who sent many of Poland's heroic resistance fighters to their death for opposing communist rule. It kind of weaves the pain of the nation into this character, and gives her enough regret and complex fallibility to be a kind of sacrificial necessity for the titular character. She appears to have directed the pain the war caused her, in losing her son and her sister, towards humanity itself, taking a kind of wicked pride in sending people to their death. She completes her arc by meeting the antithesis of herself in her sister's daughter, someone who has found solace in spiritual empathy rather than pleasures of the flesh - and she tries to test her to know for certain whether this is only because of her upbringing in a convent. A challenge Anna takes up in the end, after striking a nerve by taking her own life.

Ida is one of the most visually pleasing and best shot films of the 21st Century, but in a cinematic era where there's much to dazzle, it still didn't win it's nomination for Best Cinematography at the 2015 Oscars, losing to Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (cinematography by the Oscar-rich Emmanuel Lubezki - the middle of his hat-trick.) This cinematography was handled by both Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, and whether the former left the production due to illness or fighting with the director depends on what you read. In any case, both Zal and Pawlikowski benefitted from this when his 2018 film Cold War was also nominated for Best Cinematography, meaning Lukasz Zal has two Oscar nominations to his name - and foreign language films often find it difficult to get nominated in other fields, so these nods as to the quality the pair produce are significant. Ida's cinematography is an interestingly static one, with the camera most of the time dead still while characters walk around, sometimes in and out of frame - but the framing is always interesting and artistic in it's purposefulness. This stillness is markedly absent from the last shot in the film, denoting a signal of freedom and being unbounded.

Almost all of the music in the film is diegetic, with some Mozart and Bach and quite a memorable few moments where Joanna Kulig is singing up-tempo kinds of upbeat songs while at the same time managing to sound a little harsh and unpleasant (to me.) This is in the mid-portion of the film where Wanda and Anna are staying at an Inn where a band is playing. Lis (Dawid Ogrodnik) is the saxophone player in this band, and becomes the love interest for Anna after meeting her there. Lis promises a happy marriage and children, and introduces her to sex after Wanda has gone - he's handsome, and as a musician really plugged in, but he seems to be missing an element of passion that has bled from everything in Poland at that time. The booze, the music and the sex seem to only offer most of the people here an escape from the misery of their grey, dull lives instead of enhancing them. That's the kind of vibe I get from the band and it's singer - a desperate dance to try and shake off the coldness which permeates everything. Good thing the film is set in winter, so even the literal can join the allegorical meaning of it all, completing the picture.

Agata Trzebuchowska makes Anna very hard to define in this, because from what we see she's devouring all of the newness this outside-the-convent action is providing her with, and not giving expansive indications on how she feels about it. The biggest indications we get are when Wanda tests her patience, and Trzebuchowska reacts stiffly, but resolutely. Agata Kulesza gives the standout performance in the film, her Wanda appears to burn inside with all of the regrets, stress, unhappiness, hate, anger and need she has. There's no portion of the film when we don't feel all of that pent up anxiety, which isn't even alleviated all that much when she's fall-over drunk - it's just loosened somewhat. The pair of leads earned plenty of nominations from various Film Festivals around the world, but it's the cinematography that kept on pulling in the prizes when all of the awards are tallied up. Pawel Pawlikowski also found himself feted, especially after the film won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar - a real boon to his career, and this gave Cold War all the impetus it needed to add to his success.

Pawlikowski wanted to capture the Poland of his youth with Ida, and he probably ended up doing a lot more than that. It is the spiritual realisation of the post-war Polish nation, and it forcefully repositions us with it's old style 4:3 aspect ratio and black and white visual quality. I find watching it makes me feel calm and relaxed, while giving me those small endorphin rushes when shots of exquisite beauty pass by. It's such a beautiful film, and so measured - showing us a lot with very little in frame, or decorating whatever it is we're looking at. That can bring to mind poverty and dullness, but also spiritual simplicity and the kind of absence of material wealth needed for a person seeking oneness with religion. The pain still felt due to the scars of the Second World War are represented by Wanda, who herself takes on the mantle of oppressor before her spirit is reawakened by Anna. I think it's something of a transformative film in which Wanda sacrifices herself for Anna and the coming generation who might hope to be free. Of all the films I had been watching at the time, I set Ida aside as one of the great ones, worth lauding for it's original look, incredible visual attractiveness and spiritual depth.