We watch:
- Agata Trzebuchowska is Anna, the uninitiated young woman raised in a Catholic orphanage who has never been to the beach, never kissed a boy, and can't count her vows as a sacrifice if she doesn't know what she'll be missing.
- Agata Kulesza is Wanda, our novitiate's Communist aunt, who breaks the news to her that she wasn't born a Catholic. Red Wanda is blunt and assertive in everything she does; she asks Anna, "What if you find out there is no God?"
- Dawid Ogrodnik plays Lis, a saxophone-playing hitchhiker who adores John Coltrane's "Naima." His family also suffered during the Holocaust because some of them were Gypsies. He's trying to avoid Army duty, so he observes that both of them are afraid to take vows. BTW do NOT miss him in "Life Feels Good" at this same festival!
This effective PG-13 film is shot in black and white, so the expert use of light and shadow is obvious from the first frame. This is particularly effective in the nunnery. Our screening audience agreed that even though the pace was very, very slow, the story was gripping and accessible.
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Here is a preview:
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