Ida (2014): Ida is a complex story, simply told. Set in Poland, 1962, it begins with a young woman named Anna on the verge of taking her vows as a Catholic nun. She is urged to seek out her last remaining living relatives by her fellow nuns, and upon meeting her aunt, learns of a dark family secret. Anna then embarks on a journey to put her past to rest with her troubled aunt. Illustrated on a hauntingly lovely black-and-white screen, Ida is a quiet celebration of choosing one’s own fate.
Metalhead (2015): Metalhead is an exploration of adolescent grief, and the ways in which music is intrinsically tied to the modern coming-of-age story. The movie takes place in an isolated and agrarian village in Iceland. Hera, a young girl, witnesses the death of her brother, and finds herself unable to cope with the sense of loss that follows. Instead, she masks her grief by throwing herself into metalhead culture. The movie skips ten years, and we meet Hera as a disgruntled 20-something, who works at her father’s farm and produces ear-splitting metal at 150 beats per minute in her off-time. Through the lens of Hera’s troubled family, and their otherwise quiet and idyllic Icelandic village, Metalhead beautifully depicts the subjective nature of grief, and the time old tale of reconciling ourselves with the world we live in.
Phoenix (2014): Set in the devastated rubble of post-WWII Germany, Phoenix, aptly-named, is a story of rising from the ashes. The movie is haunting, suspenseful, and to its core, utterly ridiculous. The underlying premises — a woman betrayed, and a plot to illegally secure an inheritance — are vehicles for the deft storytelling of director Christian Petzold, who crafts a gut-wrenching narrative about society’s tenuous relationship with the truth. This movie succeeds both as a suspenseful narrative of mistaken identity, and as a psychological ghost story of a woman who rewalks the trodden path of her innocent past. This movie is well-worth a watch, if only for the stirring emotional release of its climactic end.
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