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Watched The Mill and the Cross over Wednesday and Tuesday evenings. Mixed feelings; the bits where Breughel (Rutger Hauer) explains what he's doing in the composition of his painting are great. The bits where Rutger Hauer just looks at stuff are great. I'm less thrilled with the other scenes, in which the events of the painting (the stations of the cross except it's also a metaphor for the oppression of the Flemish by occupying forces) are acted out with no dialogue, even though they couldn't really have been left out.
I think maybe my problem is that in the painting, all these stories are going on at once - it might have been more effective to interweave them rather than to show them one after the other.
Also the pace is really slow. At first I figured, well, it's a movie about a painting, how fast can it move? But Breugel's paintings are usually described as " lively." They're action-packed. Maybe if each shot has been, like, a second shorter it would have felt less leaden.
I think where it lost me, though, was early on: a peasant is being broken on the wheel by mercenaries (we're never told why, exactly; they state in voice-over that male heretics are decapitated, so all we know is that he's not a heretic) while everyone else stands by.
I think the intention is to show how the country's spirit is so broken that no one dares protest; but the man's wife is sobbing *quietly*. I know there's no way to predict for sure how someone would behave in that situation, but based on all the news footage I've ever seen, I'd have found it more believable if she had raged and her neighbors had had to restrain her lest she get herself executed too.
There's a good bit towards the end, though: as Jesus (whose face we never quite see, though we do in the painting) is being dragged towards Golgotha, and Michael York wishes he could freeze the moment at least long enough to make sense of it, the artist waves his hand in a signal to the Miller (who we've learnt is God) -- and everything does stop. No freeze frame or high tech -- the actors all simply halt in their positions, the ones from the final painting (those riding horses or holding small children are unable to be completely still). It's a coup de theatre, and it's very touching.
I think maybe my problem is that in the painting, all these stories are going on at once - it might have been more effective to interweave them rather than to show them one after the other.
Also the pace is really slow. At first I figured, well, it's a movie about a painting, how fast can it move? But Breugel's paintings are usually described as " lively." They're action-packed. Maybe if each shot has been, like, a second shorter it would have felt less leaden.
I think where it lost me, though, was early on: a peasant is being broken on the wheel by mercenaries (we're never told why, exactly; they state in voice-over that male heretics are decapitated, so all we know is that he's not a heretic) while everyone else stands by.
I think the intention is to show how the country's spirit is so broken that no one dares protest; but the man's wife is sobbing *quietly*. I know there's no way to predict for sure how someone would behave in that situation, but based on all the news footage I've ever seen, I'd have found it more believable if she had raged and her neighbors had had to restrain her lest she get herself executed too.
There's a good bit towards the end, though: as Jesus (whose face we never quite see, though we do in the painting) is being dragged towards Golgotha, and Michael York wishes he could freeze the moment at least long enough to make sense of it, the artist waves his hand in a signal to the Miller (who we've learnt is God) -- and everything does stop. No freeze frame or high tech -- the actors all simply halt in their positions, the ones from the final painting (those riding horses or holding small children are unable to be completely still). It's a coup de theatre, and it's very touching.
