Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Ida (film)" in English language version.
Beautifully shot in charcoal shades of gray in the boxy old Academy format that evokes the work of Danish master Carl Dreyer, this is a connoisseur's delight, a singular work in this day and age
... from the beginning, I was thrown into a state of awe by the movie's fervent austerity. Friends have reported similar reactions: if not awe, then at least extreme concentration and satisfaction. This compact masterpiece has the curt definition and the finality of a reckoning—a reckoning in which anger and mourning blend together.
It is a small gem, tender and bleak, funny and sad, superbly photographed in luminous monochrome: a sort of neo-new wave movie with something of the classic Polish film school and something of Truffaut, but also deadpan flecks of Béla Tarr and Aki Kaurismäki.
The film invites audiences to undertake a parallel journey while withholding much of the context (historical backstory as well as basic cinematic cues, like music and camera movement) on which engagement typically depends. It's one thing to set up a striking black-and-white composition and quite another to draw people into it, and dialing things back as much as this film does risks losing the vast majority of viewers along the way, offering an intellectual exercise in lieu of an emotional experience to all but the most rarefied cineastes.
