Ida (2013)Directed by Pawel PawlikowskiI watched this movie as part of a screening by Cinephiles Film Club (you can follow the page on FB) on Friday. This is a Polish movie and won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2014. It's set in the 1960s, and is about an orphaned girl, who is in a convent and is going to soon take her vows to become a nun. However, she is told that she is of Jewish descent, and that her real name is Ida, and she has an aunt. Her aunt is the only surviving family member, and she goes to live with her, before taking her vows. The movie is about Ida experiencing a life outside the convent and trying to find out more about her family.First of all, I must say that I found the movie very, very, slow moving. I personally didn't connect with it and didn't enjoy watching it at all because of the slow pace. The acting and the technical aspects were good though. I especially enjoyed the cinematography – every shot was carefully composed, and this is one of those movies where you could literally just pull any frame and it'd look great as a photo by itself. The movie is filmed in black and white and in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio (@imdb says it was shot on the Arri Alexa Plus 4:3). I found the compositions used interesting – in certain frames, the background was symmetrical, but the subject (the actors in the frame) were placed at the bottom left or right corners with a lot of space above. That's obviously deliberate, but it's certainly unlike anything I've seen before. However, as much as I liked the cinematography, that didn't keep my interest for the rest of the movie. It probably might improve on a second viewing, but I doubt that I'd want to watch it again.I drew actress Agata Trzebuchowska as Ida from the movie, from one of the frames I really liked. It was done in pencil and scanned.#248 / 16-Apr-17
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