Ida (2013), directed by Paweł Pawlikowksi | Director of Photography: Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski
"I just wanted to make the kind of film I like to see. I tried to make it really coherent, where form had something to do with content and not to worry about commercial pressures at all, casting the actors who wanted to act. Black-and-white is a no-no. I did everything in the book you’re not supposed to! I knew it would work in some way, but I didn’t realize it’d hit such a chord in society at large. Obviously, something must have hit some bigger chord. I think possibly people are tired of too much noise, too much information, too much everything. This is like a meditation, one that takes you out of the present day and puts you in a different state of mind. It’s not the story but the way it’s made."
— Pawel Pawlikowski, interview with Time (January 2015)
"We are so used to constant movement and compulsive cutting in American movies that the stillness of the great new Polish film “Ida” comes as something of a shock. I can’t recall a movie that makes such expressive use of silence and portraiture; 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."
— "Ida": A Film Masterpiece, The New Yorker (May 2014)
