The Painted Bird

If you thought Bergman was bleak…

(2019) Drama (IFC) Petr Kotlár, Nina Shunevych, All Sokolova, Stanislav Bilyi, Barry Pepper, Zdenek Pecha, Harvey Keitel, Udo Kier, Lech Dyblik, Jitka Cvancarová, Julian Sands, Marika Procházková, Marie Stripkova, Milan Simácek, Martin Naholká, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominik Weber, Per Jenista, Irena Måchovå. Directed by Václav Marhoul

 

Some films are made for their times; others seem to exist in no specific time period whatsoever. Then there are movies that are a product of their times and reflect a mindset or an aspect of an era. Given the times that we live in, seeing a movie like this one might not necessarily be something you’ll want to put yourself through – it’s brilliant, but brutal.

During World War II, a young Jewish Boy (Kotlár) – who is never named in the film – is sent to live in the countryside of an unnamed Eastern European country (in the press material, she is referred to as his aunt). She tries to keep him in their isolated farmhouse, but every time he ventures out village boys torment him and in a memorable scene, set fire to his pet mink which runs around, screaming as it is immolated. This is in the first five minutes of the film.

Shortly thereafter, the Boy discovers that his protector has died during the night. Startled by the sight of her corpse, he accidentally sets fire to the farmhouse and burns it to the ground. On his own now with nobody to protect him in an increasingly chaotic and desperate landscape, he meets a variety of people – some kind, some cruel – and witnesses an assortment of disturbing and venal acts, including but not limited to child abuse, spousal abuse, lynching, bestiality, rape, torture and anti-Semitism.

All of this serves to create a shell around the boy’s soul as he tries to survive the horrors he has witnessed, all the while searching for his family. But if he is to find them, will he return to them the same boy as he was when he left? Don’t count on it.

The film is based on Polish author Jerzy Kosinsky’s (Being There) first novel which became controversial when he claimed it was autobiographical, but it turned out to be not the case. Shot in lush, glorious, black and white, the cinematography helps the film feel timeless – the small, rural villages seem to be as much a part of the 15^th century as they do the 20^th, with superstitious villagers committing acts so barbarous that they can almost never be forgiven. That such things actually happened is almost of no consequence because the filmmakers give us almost no context on which to bolster the film, leaving us to feel like we just had a bath in raw sewage.

That’s not to say that every moment in this film is unredeemable – there are some characters in the film who aren’t out to rape and murder the Boy, such as a kind-hearted but misguided priest (Keitel), a gruff Russian sniper (Pepper) and a good-at-heart German soldier (Skarsgård) who spares the Boy after being ordered to kill him. Such moments, though, are few and decidedly far-between.

At just a touch under three hours long, this is a marathon and not a sprint. An early scene in which a jealous miller gouges out the eyes of a man who he thought was staring at his wife with the intention of fornicating with her (followed by the inevitable beating of said wife by the eye-gouging miller) which the miller’s cats then feasted on inspired literally dozens of patrons seeing the movie at its debut at the Venice Film Festival last year to walk out, or attempt to with increasing levels of desperation (less than half the original audience was left when the lights came back up).

There is some definite talent here and even if Marhoul attempts to stave off criticism by stating that he’s less interested in the truthfulness of the film’s subject matter but rather in the truths of human nature that they reveal. That’s the cop-out response of someone who believes his art (and therefore himself) are Above It All. Nyet to that, comrade.

This isn’t an easy watch and certainly those who are sensitive or squeamish should stay the hell away from this thing. There are some truths revealed here that remind us that we are not so far removed from being these Luddite villagers who feel it is their religious duty to execute the unholy among them, even if they are innocent children. The kind of ignorance and madness on display here seems eerily familiar – and disturbingly current.

REASONS TO SEE: Black and white photography makes the film timeless. Bears some warning in this ear of rampant nationalism.
REASONS TO AVOID: Unrelentingly bleak and brutal.
FAMILY VALUES: There is all kinds of violence (much of it graphic), animal cruelty, disturbing images and sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The language spoken in the film is not an actual language, but an amalgam of various Slavic languages and dialects. Marhoul didn’t want the film location associated with a specific nation, so he put together a fictional language in order to leave vague where the action takes place. In the original novel, the film takes place in Poland.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/25/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 83% positive reviews: Metacritic: 72/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Europa Europa
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: We Are the Radical Monarchs

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12

Twelve angry Russian men.

(Sony Classics) Sergei Markovetsky, Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergei Garmash, Alexei Petrenko, Valentin Graft, Yuri Stoyanov, Mikhail Efremov, Sergei Gazarov, Alexander Abadashan, Viktor Verzhbitsky, Alexei Gorbunov, Roman Madianov, Sergei Artsybashov, Apti Magamaev. Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

A trial of our peers, twelve good and true. Our justice system is based on it, as is the justice systems of other countries as well. We entrust the fate of accused criminals to twelve jurors and expect that they will make their decision impartially and fairly. Of course, any jury is made of twelve human beings and any human being is a slave to their own preconceptions.

In Moscow, the murder trial of a Chechen teen (Magamaev) accused of killing his adopted Russian father has concluded and the jury has been sent off to deliberate. Because of renovations being done at the courthouse, the jury has been sent to a neighboring school to use their gymnasium for that purpose. Nobody expects them to be gone long; after all, the evidence is pretty cut and dried.

With no working phones (this is Russia, after all), the bailiff hands them a homemade walkie talkie in case they need anything (unlikely) or reach a verdict (more likely). After a bit of bantering and electing a foreman, they cast their first vote, expecting a unanimous guilty verdict. When the votes are counted up, they are astonished to find that one of their number has voted “not guilty.”

So begins the odyssey of twelve Russian men, some angry, some not so much. This is a disparate group; one is a Harvard-educated mama’s boy, another a flinty anti-Semite; one is a bit of a clown and another is an intellectual. All are linked by the events they have been only described to them. What it all means and what will happen to a young Chechen boy is up to them.

The movie is ostensibly a remake of the classic courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men but it is more accurate to call it a movie based on the original. The writer of the original movie, Reginald Rose, is given screen credit but little more than the concept remains. While the original was something of an indictment of McCarthyism, this one is far more Russian and carries additional layers. While not as tense as the original movie, it nonetheless has a great deal of power of its own.

The movie is extremely well-acted, although in Russian so we miss a lot of nuances by having to read subtitles constantly. It unfolds like a Russian epic, Dostoyevsky gone Hollywood, and in some ways it feels like “Crime and Punishment” with an edge.

Each of the characters is fleshed out nicely, never coming off as a caricature or a cliché but curiously, none of the characters are given names. They are all identified as juror numbers or as some sort of title and yet they all like real people walking the streets of Moscow. As they are called upon to defend their positions, they reveal something about themselves, which in turn reveals to us something about modern Russia. There is some very powerful stuff here.

Russian attitudes also come into play. There is a palpable hatred of the Chechens by the Muskovites; it permeates their reasoning, particularly when it comes to this particular crime. Does it compare to white American attitudes towards the African-American in the 1950s? Probably not, but its pretty close.

This is the kind of movie that transcends language. Even if you aren’t Russian and don’t understand the Russian mentality, you’ll be moved by what you see here. It shows in clear, distinct detail that we are more alike than unalike, and that the same things that trouble folks in Moscow trouble folks in Montana. Those things need no translation.

WHY RENT THIS: A rare look inside the Russian legal system, as well as insight into the modern Russia and modern Russians. At times this is very powerful and very moving.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: We miss many nuances due to the translation and watching of subtitles. Russians are very fond of irony so we miss facial expressions while reading subtitles that give us further clarity.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some violent scenes, as well as some drug references and sexual references but it’s the tension and overall mature theme of the movie that makes it unsuitable for younger audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Director Mikhalkov, only the third Russian director to win an Oscar, is the son of the man who wrote the lyrics to the national anthem of the Soviet Union.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Titanic