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Author Topic: Ida  (Read 4599 times)

Sandy

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Re: Ida
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2015, 09:46:59 AM »
Wonderful perspective JeffreySchroeck. It's not quite where I was, when watching it, but the lack of choice adds an important layer to my experience. Thanks :)

oldkid

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Re: Ida
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2015, 10:25:45 PM »
Ida is a person who just follows wherever she's led, does whatever she's told.  She made a decision to see her parents' burial place, but that wasn't much in the whole scheme of things.  In the very last scene, she is walking back to the monastery--  a personal decision that is completely hers.  She now knows who she wants to be and has enough information to make an informed decision.

It is a powerful act of independence, although most people might see it as the opposite.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

FlickingDC

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Re: Ida
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2015, 04:44:38 PM »
Ida is a person who just follows wherever she's led, does whatever she's told.  She made a decision to see her parents' burial place, but that wasn't much in the whole scheme of things.  In the very last scene, she is walking back to the monastery--  a personal decision that is completely hers.  She now knows who she wants to be and has enough information to make an informed decision.

It is a powerful act of independence, although most people might see it as the opposite.

I agree that it's a powerful act of independence, but don't think I see quite the same arc for Ida as you do. I didn't see Anna/Ida as particularly unfree at the start. Yes, she's in a position of following orders, so to speak, but it felt to me like she was there because that was the person she wanted to be. She sees how the determination of history has destroyed Wanda and how Wanda was, in that sense, never free. At the end, she defiantly returns to her previous (wanted) life, unwilling to let her life be determined by horrors of the past.

Jeff Schroeck

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Re: Ida
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2015, 05:00:33 PM »
She wants to be in the convent, but only because she doesn't know of any other choice. When she's confronted with the world outside, and especially when she's confronted with the fact that this murderer chose the convent for her, she realizes that there is a world of choice, and she tries some of it. It's like Rumspringa in a way.

FlickingDC

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Re: Ida
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2015, 01:43:44 PM »
She wants to be in the convent, but only because she doesn't know of any other choice. When she's confronted with the world outside, and especially when she's confronted with the fact that this murderer chose the convent for her, she realizes that there is a world of choice, and she tries some of it. It's like Rumspringa in a way.

Good point, that's one thing I really liked about the ending. I feel like usually in a story with that element, the climax would be the protagonist being liberated by rejecting the confinement of a life devoted to religion. I thought this ending was richer and more nuanced, because it was about the character making her own choice, instead of being about the audience approving of her choice.

Sandy

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Re: Ida
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2015, 01:48:20 PM »
...it was about the character making her own choice, instead of being about the audience approving of her choice.

ooh, I like that.

Hi FlickingDC. Are you brand new? Welcome. :)

Jeff Schroeck

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Re: Ida
« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2015, 04:05:12 PM »
...it was about the character making her own choice, instead of being about the audience approving of her choice.

ooh, I like that.

Seconded. It's difficult for any writer that wants a story to feel true to deal with the conflict between what that writer would want for him or herself in the situation of the story versus what could be a valid but unfavorable alternative. It could easily go from "I want this particular ending" to "they're expecting this ending so I have to do the opposite" to "they'd be expecting the opposite so I'll do the real one" and on and on into an endless cycle of double-, triple-, quadruple-reverse psychology.

FlickingDC

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Re: Ida
« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2015, 07:29:54 PM »
...it was about the character making her own choice, instead of being about the audience approving of her choice.

ooh, I like that.

Hi FlickingDC. Are you brand new? Welcome. :)

Thanks for the comment and the welcome, Sandy! Steve here, been listening to the show for many years, but yeah relatively new to posting in the forum.

FlickingDC

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Re: Ida
« Reply #18 on: March 08, 2015, 07:31:17 PM »
...it was about the character making her own choice, instead of being about the audience approving of her choice.

ooh, I like that.

Seconded. It's difficult for any writer that wants a story to feel true to deal with the conflict between what that writer would want for him or herself in the situation of the story versus what could be a valid but unfavorable alternative. It could easily go from "I want this particular ending" to "they're expecting this ending so I have to do the opposite" to "they'd be expecting the opposite so I'll do the real one" and on and on into an endless cycle of double-, triple-, quadruple-reverse psychology.

Yeah, I think that's related to why it's a turn-off for me when I hear that the creators of a particular film have been focus-grouping various endings and making those kinds of changes based on audience reaction. I tend to prefer the idea of the mind(s) behind a movie having something they organically want to get across rather than having the orientation that they're going to figure out what I'd like to see as the audience member and then serving it up.

Sandy

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Re: Ida
« Reply #19 on: March 08, 2015, 10:02:15 PM »
Thanks for the comment and the welcome, Sandy! Steve here, been listening to the show for many years, but yeah relatively new to posting in the forum.

Happy to meet you. There is an intro thread, if you'd like to say hi officially. :)

http://www.filmspotting.net/forum/index.php?topic=527.4340