Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Mill and the Cross (2011)

The premise of this film is similar to Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sunday in the Park with George" in that it depicts an artist at work creating a well known painting and the events surrounding the contents of the painting.  Except, this movie is devoid of music, narrative, and fun.  It is so slow and boring that it was quite difficult to watch.  There is very minimal dialogue (the few lines of dialogue are these jumbled monologues) and so the story is told much through gestures and lack of action.  There is a lot of artificial light that saturates the picture and don't get me wrong--some of the shots are really stunning (kind of in a "Tree of Life" way that's slow and painful).  The one positive aspect of the movie is its innovative use of CGI to make Bruegel's "The Procession to Calvary" come to life. I wasn't really a fan of French peasant life in "Martin Guerre", but these Flemish peasants are so much worse.

No comments:

Post a Comment