Poster of Sister Ida
Eastern European Jews love to tell ghost stories. Among the many horror stories about elves, dolls, devils, and hell, the story of the evil spirit is the most popular, with a history of more than 400 years (I should talk about Jewish horror movies in the future, welcome to read it). The so-called evil spirit, in the Eastern European Jewish lingua Francophone Dibbuk, refers to the soul of a person who has committed the most heinous sins before his death. Because these people have committed so many sins, after death, the souls naturally cannot enter heaven, and even hell will not take them in. Therefore, their souls can only suffer and wander in the world, sometimes attached to the bodies of the living. It is easy to determine whether a person is possessed by an evil spirit, to see whether he or she has suddenly changed his or her usual words and deeds, whether he or she has suddenly spoken a foreign language, and so on, which is similar to the ghost possession in chinese folklore. Although it is easy to be possessed by evil spirits, it is difficult to expel evil spirits. According to Jewish tradition, only Jewish rabbis in charge of religious legal rituals could expel evil spirits from the body of the living, because if not expelled in time, the possessed living could soon die.
Of course, the legend of the evil spirit is just a legend, and it cannot be taken seriously in real life. But what we need to explore is why the legend of evil spirits is widespread and enduring among the Jews of Eastern Europe – you know, the most popular play in Jewish history is called "The Evil Spirit", which was released in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, and everyone had to go to the theater to see at least one play, and some even went to see it one after another. In the 1930s, "Evil Spirits" was adapted into a movie, filmed in the United States, and later became a classic of a generation of Jews, and it is still repeated to this day — I will write about this film in detail later. But the film we're talking about today is not "Evil Spirits" from the 1930s, but a Polish drama film made in 2013, "Ida," also translated as "Ida's Choice" or "Sister Ida."
Movie "Evil Spirit"
Sister Ida is a black-and-white film directed by Polish director Pabel Pavlikovski who won the 87th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The whole film imitates the screen of the old movie 1:1.33, creating a depressing atmosphere with very few lines. Date's story takes place in 1962, just 17 years after World War II. Ida, a nun at a Monastery in Poland, was told before taking the oath that she had another relative in the world, Wanda, her aunt and her mother's sister. Ida then visits Wanda, who tells her that she is actually Jewish, that her parents were killed in the war, and that she was killed along with a little black-headed boy. Ida says she wants to visit the grave, so Wanda takes her on a journey to find the place where her parents are buried. They first found the house where Date's parents once lived, then found a place to bury Date's parents, and then they took the bones of her parents and the little black-haired boy, who was actually Wanda's son, to Wanda's family cemetery for burial. After returning, Date chose not to take the oath but to wait. But Wanda had created an accident for herself. When Wanda died, Ida left the convent and went to Wanda's house, put on Wanda's sexy clothes, smoked her cigarettes, drank her wine, and slept at night with a man who had a crush on her. The man said that later we lived together, had a few children and raised a dog. Ida did not speak, but left the man after he was asleep, put on the nun's clothes, and was supposed to be back in the convent.
The plot of the movie is very thin, the background music is very small, and even the dialogue is only a few sentences. But the film implants a profound theme in such a thin framework — the inheritance of traumatic memories of the Holocaust. In order to express the exploration of this issue, the film cleverly arranged several plots.
Diametrically opposed to Ida and Wanda
First of all, when Ida first visited her aunt Wanda, Wanda told her that your mother Rosa's hair was red, and your hair wrapped in the nun's turban was red, right? Ida nodded. Then, while they were on the road, Wanda told Ida about her past, saying that she had been a prosecutor in the country, involved in many major cases, and sentenced others to death. Because of her tough and capable style, people called her "Red Hair Wanda". So the red hair linked the dead Rosa, the living Wanda, and Ida, who had first met Wanda and heard that she was Jewish. Therefore, the family heirloom red hair can be considered the externalization and symbol of inner emotions.
Secondly, during the road trip, Wanda tells Ida who the boy Ida thought was her brother was. When she was young, she entrusted her son to her sister Rosa because of her busy work, and she did not expect that the child would be killed like that. And this experience, including the story of "Red Haired Wanda" mentioned earlier, also proves to the audience that there may be a world of difference between Wanda in the past and Wanda who smokes and drinks about men now. It was easy to guess what had changed—after all, she knew how to find the burial place of Ida's parents and her son but never took action until Ida appeared in front of her. Therefore, it can be seen that Wanda's change is actually the trauma caused by the Massacre in a broad sense. It is broad because after all, Neither Rosa nor Wanda's son died in the Nazi concentration camps, but were killed by the Poles. The poles killed Jews because of Hitler's policies, and therefore in a broad sense.
Third, and most obviously, Ida, the diametrically opposed to Wanda, became Wanda "inexplicably" after Wanda's death, and here "inexplicably" links the traumatic memory of the Holocaust to the legends of evil spirits circulating among Polish Jews. In the film, it is obvious that the simple and pious Ida and the sexy but deliberately depraved Wanda are two diametrically opposed people, but after Wanda leads Ida to find and bury the bones of Ida's parents and her son, Ida chooses not to take the oath for the time being, and after Wanda's death, she lives in Wanda's apartment, puts on her clothes, smokes her cigarette, drinks her wine - becomes Wanda. How did this shift happen?
It's not easy to answer this question. Apparently, Ida's choice not to take the oath was related to this road trip with her aunt, and how could she believe in God wholeheartedly when she saw her parents and cousin being killed innocently? There is one detail to pay attention to. Just before Ida and Wanda prepare to bury their loved ones, Ida says, Do we have to hire a priest? Wanda said, Rabbi, you're talking about rabbi. But at the time of the burial, only they appear in the camera, and the rabbi is absent - combined with the important role of the rabbi in the exorcism ceremony mentioned above, the absence of the rabbi means that the evil spirit is not expelled, but jumps from the dead Wanda to the living Ida, so that Ida no longer believes in God, but is also possessed by the evil spirit - the traumatic memory of the holocaust.
Ida who became Wanda
Ida's sudden transformation symbolizes that her next generation as holocaust victims and survivors has inevitably been affected by this historical event, and the trauma will not disappear with death, but will only wander the world like possessed evil spirits. So, when Ida, who was affected by the trauma of the Holocaust, went to sleep with the man who admired her, and the man described the happy life of the two people after that, Ida could only respond with silence. Because after seeing such a tragic hell on earth, she may no longer be able to live an ordinary life after being possessed by evil spirits.
Although the film has few Jewish elements, its overall framework is formed in the collision of Jewish folk traditions in Eastern Europe with the post-Holocaust world. The use of evil spirits to symbolize the traumatic memory of the Holocaust is not uncommon in Western literary films. The most famous is probably "The Dance of Genghis Cohn" written by Roman Gary— yes, the male lead in the movie "Promise at Dawn." In this novel, German officers who had executed Jews in World War II felt possessed by the evil spirit of a Jew they had executed after the war, so much so that they later confused their identities with Jews. Here, like Sister Ida, the evil spirit that does not exist actually symbolizes a trauma and memory that cannot be shaken off, and that lingers like a ghost.
The man in the lower left corner of the "Promise of Dawn" poster is the writer Roman Gary
At the very end of the film, Date chooses to put on a nun's clothes and walk down a path. It is conceivable that she is going back to the monastery. This ending seems to be closed, but it is actually open - can Date, who no longer believes in God, return to the monastery and continue to believe? If not, how would she spend her life possessed by an evil spirit that could not be expelled? The film doesn't tell the audience, and history doesn't.
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