Die Mühle & das Kreuz (2011)
44KDie Mühle u0026 das Kreuz: Directed by Lech Majewski. With Rutger Hauer, Michael York, Charlotte Rampling, Joanna Litwin. This movie focuses on a dozen of the five hundred characters depicted in Bruegel’s painting. The theme of Christ’s suffering is set against religious persecution in Flanders in 1564.
“This gorgeous reconstruction of Bruegelu0026#39;s painting is ultimately more impressive than inspiring. There is no character, no narrative, no emotion in this piece and thereu0026#39;s not that much analysis, either, despite the directoru0026#39;s claims. I just saw it at the SF Film Fest, and the likable and knowledgeable director gave a lengthy lecture a) on how long it took to find the fabric for the costumes and b) on the loss of our ability to read pictorial symbols. Sadly, the latter was not related to (or within) the film directly–that would have been interesting indeed!–and neither is the impressive (expensive) production design enough to make this work compelling.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you are interested in symbology and art history, see Peter Greenawayu0026#39;s, far superior Nightwatching, a film with a plot and lively characters as well as a fascinating view into the meanings (and the USE of meanings and symbols) of another famous Dutch painting, which, despite also suffering from some bombastic elements, still manages to engage the viewer in its own right as a movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAlso Derek Jarmanu0026#39;s Caravaggio comes to mind as a film that uses tableaux to evoke the painter of the title. Despite–or perhaps due to–being somewhat opaque and strange, the Greenaway and Jarman films (and almost any of their work) are far more interesting than The Mill and the Cross, because they use the medium of film to SHOW and not TELL. This literal and slavish reproduction of the painting was impressive in its verisimilitude but ultimately pointless and superficial.”
