Review of The Mill and the Cross (2011) by Cmc — 13 Oct 2011

Short review: Commendable idea and effort that is in the end disappointing and tedious.

Longer review: This film is an attempt to capture in film *something* from a painting. This is the problem: it never figure out what it is trying to do, or how to do it. There are many hints of possible approaches, and some are very interesting. The least interesting is the use of the painter doing first-person narration, explaining the painting (and some of the elements of the movie.) It get worse when it is a weak dialogue between the painter and one other person inquiring about the painting. As for the interesting stuff, many scenes have a visual flatness that very successfully look like a painting. A few don't work well and look like badly registered 90's green-screen, but many are interesting. There are slow pans, with some people moving and others frozen, all with a strange light. This all looks good, but cannot hold interest long and does not a movie make. Then there a few "scenes" that are really good; in particular one with evocative light where kids are pillow-fighting in some dingy farm room. The sound is good here- kids yelling, but no real coherence, no discernible word spoken. Another great scene that suggests a very different direction the film could have taken occurs at the end of the film, where all the people dance in a strange way that is suggested by a Bruegal painting. There are other parts of the film where people move and act strangely, and this all works well. Another successful aspect is how characters seem to perform their roles with a sense of inevitability. This mimics well the sense of these paintings that a drama is unfolding and that everyone is performing a role, without much individual personality. I easily imagine that the filmmaker did not know what to expect, and when the edit was done it was too late to go back and do it right. Too bad. I give it a rating of seven because it is an admirable pursuit, far from conventional filmmaking. As entertainment, it is a 1. Unfortunately, it is hard to watch to the end, and this is not in a good way that I say this. Most people will not like this film.