‘ID:A’ Review
Stars: Tuva Novotny, Flemming Enevold, Carsten Bjørnlund, Arnaud Binard, John Buijsman, Rogier Philipoom, Jens Jørn Spottag | Written by Tine Krull Petersen | Directed by Christian E. Christiansen
In a trend started off by the likes of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, European thrillers seem to be quite popular right now, and of course very remarkable for the lazy people who don’t want to read subtitles. ID:A is a Danish thriller that is likely to attempt to get the same type of attention as the Millennium trilogy and show itself off as a gritty European thriller.
ID:A starts off with a woman waking up injured by a river, she has no idea how she got there or who she is, all she knows is that she’s being hunted down and that she’s carrying a lot of money. Travelling into the city she soon finds herself pulled back into a life she does not remember, but as her amnesia starts to fade and we see the events that led up to the start of the film we begin to see what danger she’s pulled herself back into and just what the truth is behind her waking up injured is.
ID:A is a hard film to guess about as we find out the plot as the woman recovers her memory. This gives us a fragmented storyline with characters appearing that are both confusing not only to us but to Aliena/Ida (the woman) herself. Of course as her memory returns and she starts to get comfortable in her old life things start to wind themselves together into quite a thrilling climax where we learn just what happened. I will admit to enjoying the way this was done as it’s not the usual hand guided method that a lot of films feel they have to provide us with. We are given as little information as possible and given the chance to piece it together for ourselves. There are little hints of events that have happened and we are able to connect them up just as the woman does. I always enjoy films that actually want us to think.
As much as that aspect of the film is a success though there is a weakness, and that is the plot. It’s a shame really because it is interesting enough. I just found that the film was more interesting when the woman had amnesia and everything was a mystery. By the time we get to the finale though I for one found that the actual revelation was slightly dull. I won’t spoil what the story is, that would ruin half the fun of the film itself, but for me I’d have loved it to have a little more substance and not go down the slightly formulaic routes that it does. As confusing as it may seem yes, it’s a film that will keep you guessing for the most part but it’s the back story that just seems slightly weak.
A lot of the film really relies on the main character Aliena/Ida to work, we have to care about her and have to want to know exactly how she got to where she was and I’m glad to say the actress Tuva Novotny does a good job here. Right from the start she plays a character that is obviously hiding something and is continually making people suspicious, they don’t trust her. What they don’t know of course is she knows nothing anyway. She manages to make us feel as confused as her at times when her past life is encroaching on her amnesia and she just can’t remember, without her acting ability this important part of the film would have been ruined, I was glad that she was talented enough to make the character work.
Even though I found the back story quite weak I still found ID:A an enjoyable film. Part of the interest of course has to work out exactly who the woman is and what happened to her. Instead of giving the audience the power of knowing what is actually going on we are instead given the puzzle to work out just as the main character has to and this is of course the appeal. Intelligently put together, this is a good film, it’s just a shame the truth of the situation is not as strong as the puzzle to find it out.
ID:A is released on DVD on May 14th, courtesy of Chelsea Films