They Let the Right One In

Prizes are rarely won by deserving winners, but amazingly the Oscar committee got it right with this year's award to Ida as Best Foreign Film. In his acceptance speech the film's director said it was a film about the need for silence, withdrawal from the world and contemplation. This is what I thought of it.

Sadly, after that Oscar award, things got a bit strange. I mean Birdman was amusing, but it was no Grand Budapest Hotel.  I suppose it appealed to the Oscar voters' egoes though, as it is all about how dreadful it is to be an actor. I would have given Edward Norton best supporting actor for his role in Birdman and his role in Grand Budapest Hotel and I'd have given best supporting actress to the daughter in Birdman - and then I would have given Grand Budapest Hotel best design, best director and best movie.

But I am not an academy member, just a cinema goer. Birdman is good up to a point, but Grand Budapest Hotel will charm viewers for generations.

Faith in Film

Is it just me or have all the best films recently been set in closed religious communities? There was Of Gods and Men, a wonderful film. Then there was Beyond the Hills, equally wonderful. And now we have Ida, which I've written about here.

Perhaps it is the contrast between the way we live currently and the aspirations of those who choose a religious life that makes monasteries and nunneries such interesting settings. Unspoken questions rise up from stories concerning people who have made choices so radically different from those we are encouraged to think of as normal, people who have such different goals from those we are taught we ought to have.

Anyway, I went to see Ida and I enjoyed it far more than I enjoyed Gone Girl. I thought that, if Thomas Hardy had made films instead of writing novels, Ida is the kind of film he might have made.


I'm sure Gone Girl will make far more money than Ida but that, sadly, is life.