By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.25
Director: Lech Majewski
Starring: Charlotte Rampling | Michael York | Rutger Hauer
Original language title: Mlyn i krzyz
Country: poland, sweden
Year: 2011
Running time: 92
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324055/
Diane says: “RUSSIAN ARK meets Mel Gibson’s PASSION. This gorgeous, soporific Polish film turns Bruegel’s painting, ‘The Way to Calvary,’ into a mostly wordless narrative. Concept is great (digitized background of the painting’s landscape with live actors in middle- and foreground), but I’d be reluctant to recommend the film. It gets tedious, and I was wishing for a wildly contemporary talking head to bust in and shake it up. The scenes of home life in 1500s Flanders are lovely and educational. The film succeeds in conveying Bruegel’s intent: events of great import are overlooked as daily life goes on. 2 1/2 cats.”
Bruce says: “Not often enough do most of us pause to wonder how a great work of art came into being or to question the underlying politics and social significance of what appears to the naked eye. Lech Majewski has created a significant film that examines the behind the scenes activities that resulted in a masterpiece. The object examined is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘The Way to Calvary,’ painted in 1564 just five years before his death somewhere in his forties. The film is an adaptation of Michael Gibson’s book by the same name.
“At the time Bruegel painted this masterpiece, Flanders was occupied by Spain. The Spanish Empire was spread too thin and the governance of the Seventeen Provinces of the Hapsburg Empire focused strictly on collecting high taxes without offering much in return. Spanish mercenary soldiers roamed the countryside in their red uniforms. ‘The Way to Calvary’ was painted just four years prior to the end of The Eighty Years’ War also known as The Dutch War of Independence.
“Bruegel (Rutger Hauer), like most painters of his time, had a patron, the wealthy Antwerp merchant and collector Nicolaes Jonghelinck (Michael York). Jonghelinck has a spot picked out for the painting before Breugel has even started. Unfortunately, film does not trace the painting’s provenance so we do not know the path to its current home, Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. Like most of the painters in his time Bruegel painted what he knew and did not rely on historical fact or fantasies of what life in Jerusalem must have been at the time of Christ. Over 500 figures populate ‘The Way to Calvary’ and they are based upon villagers and Spanish soldiers that populated Bruegel’s world.
“Cleverly, Majewski documents the day-to-day activities that infiltrate Breugel’s work. We see the peasants at work, making love, and performing their diurnal rituals. We also see the Spanish mercenaries torturing supposed heretics and putting them on lofty wheels to rot in the sun and be picked to shreds by hungry crows. (The scene calls to mind the sacred cow torn asunder by ultures in Louis Malle’s epic PHANTOM OF INDIA.) All the activities wend their way into The Way to Calvary or relate to the painting obliquely. The exception is the mill. Perched high on a rock it is more allegorical than a true depiction of the Flanders landscape.
“THE MILL AND THE CROSS is a film for only the most patient of viewers. The pace is extraordinarily slow and the dialogue is sparse. The cinematography is spectacular and the assemblage of characters likely to be found in a Breugel painting is impressive indeed. 4 cats”
| The Mill and the Cross (Sweden/Poland; 92 min.) directed by: Lech Majewski starring: |
 |