Ida

Poland in the 1960s. Anna, a novice about to take her vows, is told she must leave the convent and visit her only relative. Her aunt Wanda tells her two things: her real name is Ida Lebenstein and her parents were Jewish. The two of them set out to find where the dead of the war were buried. Paweł Pawlikowski directed, returning to Poland to do it. Agata Trzebuchowska took the part of Anna with no acting experience, found in a Warsaw café. Agata Kulesza plays Wanda. It is black and white and shot in an unusual 4:3 ratio. Pawlikowski reported the producers' objection: Paul, you are no longer a student, don't be silly. The framing is deliberately unbalanced, with the figures pressed to the bottom of the frame to make the viewer uneasy. In 2015 it became the first Polish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 96 percent. David Denby called it a compact masterpiece. In Poland nationalist circles attacked its view of Christian and Jewish relations. A petition with over forty thousand signatures asked for explanatory titles, arguing that Poles executed for hiding Jews went unmentioned. Producer Eric Abraham refused, pointing to other historical films that carry no captions. On a 2.6 million dollar budget it grossed 15.3 million worldwide. Who it is for: viewers who like spare, quiet, visually exacting films. Who it is not for: anyone wanting explanation. It runs eighty minutes and answers few of its questions.