The Painted Bird

A young Jewish boy and the extreme abuse (quite hideous, alarming at times) and suffering inflicted upon him during WWII by some exceptionally evil and wicked people; slightly loses traction with a few too many frying pan fire cycles to emphasise the point, a shocking experience nonetheless, albeit a very long one. Whether the world still needs this kind of stylisation of the effects of war remains debatable, as does its impact on the memories and emotions already formed over so many years and by so many.

To be honest I had my doubts about this movie before watching it. A Czech black and white movie that is almost three hours long, it didn't look appealing to me, but after watching it I'm glad to admit I was wrong having those prejudices. The cinematography is stunning, certainly one of the best black and white movies I ever watched. Every shot is well thought of, beautiful work with the contrasts and shadows, dark images that fit perfectly with the very hard story. I get it that some viewers will hate it, it's not an easy movie to watch and not everybody is able to digest some of the brutal scenes. Personally I wasn't really bothered by it, it's just a movie, and those images contributed perfectly to the story. It's a story about constant abuse, the hard reality for some kids, whether you like it or not the war wasn't a nice period to live in, certainly not for a Jewish abandoned kid. Petr Kotlár did a stunning job playing his character, and even if there's not much talking in The Painted Bird you still get drawn into the story, mostly due to the excellent cinematography but also because of that very well chosen cast. Most of the actors are unknown to me, most of them look like they had a hard life (it changes from the usual goodlooking Hollywood actors we're normally bombarded with). Their faces showed the despair, the anger, the evil that was present in every character. If you watch this movie you will come to the conclusion there are no nice people in The Painted Bird. Beside the unknown cast I was surprised to see some very well known actors like Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgård and others. They had smaller roles but were effective, and even if I doubt Harvey Keitel manages to speak Czech it looked all natural. The Painted Bird was a nice surprise to me, never expected that, but it's certainly not for everybody as the cruelty drips from every scene in this movie.

'The Painted Bird' (2019) by Czech director Václav Marhoul is a very difficult film to evaluate. On the one hand, from a cinematic point of view, it is one of the remarkable performances we have seen in recent years - impeccably technical, with many interesting innovations that serve the narrative and messages of the film. It is a film about the Holocaust, an inexhaustible historical and human theme, and more precisely about the destiny of a child in those terrible times - so a story of those with which viewers identify emotionally. Here, however, the issue of this construction also appears. The series of horrors that pervade the screen hardly coexists with the inevitable sensitivity of the spectators when it comes to children's fates on screen. The film is an indictment against a war-torn dehumanised Europe, cruel or at best indifferent to the fate of children separated from their parents by the brutality of war, witnesses and often even victims of the most terrible torture and abuse. There is a complicated history around the film, which adds complexity to the whole edifice and makes it even more difficult to appreciate this film which is both difficult to watch and impossible to ignore as cinematic value and message.

Joska, the main hero, is a Jewish boy on the verge of adolescence, maybe 10-11 years old, who is sent by his parents to an aunt living in a distant place to be saved from deportation. The aunt dies suddenly and the boy embarks alone on a journey home through war-torn Central Europe. On the way he will meet different people, traumatised and impoverished by war. Few will help him, most will exploit, hit, humiliate him. The horrors he will witness and the trials this boy goes through are extreme - from violence and slavery to torture, rape and sexual perversions. Almost the entire repertoire of human cruelty is present in this film. Under these conditions, the boy is in danger to lose his humanity, his sense of good and evil, his appreciation of the value of life, and his identity. Is it still possible for him to recover and return to a normal life after individual traumas of such intensity and proportions? The elliptically beautiful final leaves this question open.

The Europe described by Václav Marhoul contains enough historical hints that allow to locate the story in the film in time in 1944-1945, the last years of World War II, but at the same time many of the scenes take place in a rural setting that could belong to any of the historical periods when Europe was torn apart by wars from the Middle Ages to the present day. Geographical area is treated similarly. The novel that inspired the film is written (in English) by the Polish Jerzy Kosinski, but the producers of 'The Painted Bird' made efforts to avoid a precise location, up to inventing a hybrid language that is used by the villagers in the film, language which combines Czech, Slovak and Polish spoken in central Europe. The cinematography signed by Vladimír Smutný is remarkable, using aesthetically and expressively black and white and the widescreen format of some of Ingmar Bergman's famous films. Much of the film's burden lies on the shoulders of child actor Petr Kotlár, who does not say a word throughout the film, but whose eyes are witnesses to the horrors outside and the suffering inside. The rest of the cast includes a consistent series of portraits, very well made, with realism and naturalism, and played mostly by Czech actors whom we do not know, but also with a few exceptions of celebrities such as Stellan Skarsgård or Harvey Keitel, excellently integrated. As in the masters' films, 'The Painted Bird' is divided into episodes, each bearing the names of some of the human or inhuman people that Joska encounters on his way. Kosinski's novel aroused controversy similar to that now aroused by the film, due to the accumulation of extreme scenes of violence and sex, but also because what was originally presented and promoted as an autobiographical story proved to be rather a synthesis of stories, gathered disparately from the testimonies of several survivors who lived the Holocaust in childhood. In a world where direct witnesses are almost non-existent and where deniers are making their voices heard louder and louder, even works of fiction such as the book and film 'The Painted Bird' must be credible. It is not the description of the extremes that seems problematic to me, but rather their gathering in a single biography. Lack of credibility also harms the emotional involvement of viewers. The temporal and geographical generalisation introduced in the film solves, I think, only partially this problem.

Heavy. It's a series of chapters displayed by a photography both stunning and merciless. Human beings here are foundamentally cruel (with a couple of exceptions) and cruelty flows from the oppressor to the oppressed. The movie reminds us about that. The ending has being discussed, but I think that, just maybe, the protagonist can still hope for a better future.

Greetings again from the darkness. Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosinski's 1965 novel "The Painted Bird" has one of the strangest and most controversial histories of any book. Initially celebrated as an extraordinary piece on the Holocaust era, the novel was banned in Poland, and author Kosinski was accused of falsifying claims of it being an autobiographical work. Later he was accused of plagiarism for this book and his 1970 book "Being There" (adapted into a 1979 movie starring Peter Sellers). This story of a young Jewish boy, abandoned by his parents and traveling the Eastern Europe countryside during WWII, is now accepted as a blend of fiction and his friend (director) Roman Polanski's experiences. Czech filmmaker Vaclav Marhoul has turned the book into a stunning viewing experience.

First time actor Petr Kotlar is extraordinary as the unnamed (until the end) Jewish boy on a journey that might be entitled Dante's Circle of Abuse or Homer's Odyssey of Misery. This is a young boy in need of kindness from strangers, but unable to find much. The film opens with the boy running through the woods carrying what appears to be his pet ferret. He's being chased by a group of sadistic Anti-Semite bullies. It's a chase that doesn't end well. We learn the boy is living with his "Auntie" Marta (Nina Sunevic) on her rundown farm, and we intuit that his parents thought he would be safer here than with them. When the woman dies suddenly and unexpectedly, the boy accidentally burns the house down, kicking off his walk across the countryside. Almost inexplicably, this is the most upbeat segment of the film.

Director Marhoul divides the film into 9 chapters, each named after the person the boy meets and lives with temporarily. I'll recap the following eight chapters with a focus on not giving away too much ... just know that this film is unrelenting in its brutality and bleakness. After Marta's death, the boy stumbles into a village where he is considered cursed and labeled a vampire. The witch doctor Olga (Ala Sakalova) enslaves him until he escapes down river, where he is rescued by a mill worker. The head miller (Udo Kier) is a frightening man who takes exception with his worker (not the boy) gazing lustfully at his wife. Kier's eyes manage to burn right through the black and white film, and soon he turns exceedingly violent towards his wife and the worker, leaving us with an unforgettable visual.

The boy then finds himself at the home of Lekhi (Lech Dyblik) who captures wild birds and regularly hooks up with Ludmila (Jitka Cvancorova), a wild woman who lives in the forest. The boy witnesses two horrific deaths, but not before the sequence which gives the film its title and ensures we understand what happens to outcasts - those who are different. At about the one hour mark, the boy finds an injured horse and walks it into the local village. It's at this point where we hear him speak (kind of) for the first time. A violent Russian invasion of the village results in the Cossacks offering the bound and gagged Jewish boy to the German soldiers as a "gift". Stellan Skarsgard is the veteran soldier who draws the assignment of taking the boy into the woods to shoot him.

When the soldier sends him on his way, a sickly Catholic Priest (Harvey Keitel) takes the boy under his wing and trains him to be an altar boy. All is fine until a parishioner (Julian Sands) with despicable intentions agrees to take the boy in and provide for him. This segment has what may be the most cringe-inducing death scene in the film, after which we find the boy trudging through snow and falling through ice, and crawling towards a cabin where Labrina (Julia Valentova) and a sickly old man live. The boy faces more abuse as he's incapable of pleasing Labrina, which leads to situations he's much too young to understand. Traumatized, the boy's personality takes a turn.

In his next village, an attack by Germans puts the boy in contact with Russian sniper Mitka (Barry Pepper), who leaves him with the real life advice of, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Having only recently lost his innocence, the advice hits home for the boy. He ends up in an orphanage where a surprise occurs that causes the boy to lash out in anger ... at least until he observes something that makes him understand the world has been cruel to others, not just him.

Normally, I wouldn't recap or outline the segments of a movie in this manner, but it's crucial to understand what you are about to watch. It's a nearly 3 hour epic of human cruelty and survival instinct. Young Petr Kotlar spends much of the movie taking and witnessing abuse while his face is near emotionless (save for a couple of extremes). Joy is elusive, if not non-existent. The film shows us not all Holocaust horrors occurred in death camps. The atrocities of war and the cruelty of humans result in a film that is beyond bleak at times, but also makes a clear point about how differently people treat those not "like" us, regardless who the "us" is. This point is as evident today as it was during WWII.

Director Marhoul excels in showing, rather than telling ... there is almost no 'telling' throughout the film. Cinematographer Vladimir Smutney makes expert use of the 35mm black & white film to provide images that are stark and brutal like the world the boy sees. The Production Design from Jan Vlasak puts us right in the muck, while the Sound from Jakub Cech is crucial to every scene.

The film is a joint project of Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine, as Poland refused to participate. It had quite the festival run last year, including some high profile walk-outs during the Venice Film Festival. It's one of the rare movies that every cinephile is thankful to have seen, yet as human beings, we would likely never want to watch again. Murder, abuse, suicide, torture, bestiality, rape, violence, cruelty, slaughter, pedophilia, incest, war atrocities ... these aren't topics we typically seek out, and they thankfully aren't topics that all show up in a single movie very often! There are a few moments of compassion if you watch closely, but mostly it's a reminder of the cruelty of humans when the structure of society collapses, and hope is hard to come by. As Edwin Starr sang in his number one hit in 1970, "War, good God. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing."