The Painted Bird (2020) (Czech, German and Russian language)

Review

169min

Genre:      Drama, War

Director:    Václav Marhoul

Cast:        Petr Kotlár, Udo Kier, Julian Sands…and more

Writers:    Václav Marhoul and Jerzy Kosinski

-Synopsis-

In bleak rural Eastern Europe at the end of the second world war, a young Jewish peasant boy wanders from village to village after the death of his foster aunt, struggling to survive while witnessing and suffering the amorality and brutality of the people he encounters . . . both in uniform and out.

It’s safe to say that cinema’s track record for putting the confronting realities of the persecution and soul-destroying devastation of World War II up on the screen is a mixed one, and at this point well over half a century old. Telling tales of heroism, evil, and survival from international perspectives and in different styles with varying degrees of jingoism, often based on real events and sometimes on perceptions and hypotheticals. Now Czech filmmaker Václav Marhoul boldly throws his hat into the ring by adapting Jerzy Kosinski’s personal and distinctly bleak 1965 novel of the same name, taking his cue from grim 1985 Soviet war horror/drama ‘Come and See’ and other period survival fare to deliver one of the darkest human dramas in recent memory, maybe ever.

Petr Kotlár stars as young ‘Joska’, a peasant boy in war-torn Eastern Europe who becomes a wandering pariah when his elderly guardian aunt dies, roaming from village to village looking for safety and survival. But as he travels the war-torn land navigating the dangers of the retreating Nazis and the advancing Soviets, Joska encounters an array of peasants and villagers—like the brutal miller (Udo Kier) and his family, ‘Lekh’ (Lech Dyblik) the tragic bird-keeper, the caring priest (Harvey Keitel) and the deviant local (Julian Sands)—as his quest for survival confronts him with the horrors of war and the depths of humanity on the brink.

It’s practically written in the stars that the ‘The Painted Bird’ would be a controversial film, not only due to its subject matter and nihilistic tendencies, but also thanks to its very origins. Adapted from a novel from Jewish Polish-American author Jerzy Kosinski, whose skills as a forger and penchant for creating multiple identities helped him survive the Holocaust and the horrors of the war, but also attracted accusations of plagiarism and doubts about whether his novel was truly autobiographical, or even written by him at all.

Yet all of that is frankly academic and irrelevant to the audience’s experience of the film, because this morbid yet utterly compelling amoral odyssey of survival is one of the bleakest and darkest cinematic plunges into the human condition you’re ever likely to see—and one way or another, it will claw its way into your consciousness and sear itself into your memory.

And make no mistake, ‘The Painted Bird’ is controversial because of what it depicts and how, as Marhoul proves unflinching and unapologetic in running our young protagonist through an unlikely yet believable relentless gauntlet of callousness and exploitation. Leaving us wondering whether this survival tale should be renamed ‘101 ways to abuse a child’, or ‘how to create a psychopath’.

The film’s bleak and haunting period qualities are enhanced by the use of vivid black and white, and by Marhoul and cinematographer Vladimír Smutný’s shot selection, blending wide shots of battle-scarred rural landscapes with claustrophobic character close-ups which reveal plenty of pain, desperation, quiet suffering, and quite a bit of callousness and chilling indifference. And the director resists manipulating the audience or stylising the story by steering clear of any real soundtrack, forcing the audience to take responsibility for their own emotions, and perhaps experience a collective witness complicity.

Like the novel on which it’s based, the horror of ‘The Painted Bird’ unfolds in an unspecified country and was shot across the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, with Marhoul making very effective use of the local faces for his supporting and background cast. They’re all led by young debutant Petr Kotlár as the young ‘tainted’ bird in question, who delivers a remarkable performance of a largely impassive urchin determined to survive while handling his unspeakable abuse with disturbing stoicism . . . but hiding a bubbling rage beneath. But things turn towards the unexpected when the film throws up the likes of Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård, and slightly surreal when Eastern European faces turn into Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands and Barry Pepper—whose performances are all curiously dubbed into local languages.

It’s no surprise then that in its first showing at last year’s summer film festival season, ‘The Painted Bird’ prompted remonstrations and several walk-outs, and at a runtime of nearly three hours it feels like the misery and trauma is endless, with only a slight glimmer of hope in sight which makes the film’s “Light is visible only in the dark” tagline apt indeed. For some it will be too deliberate and too much, others claim that the unending “fetishist” misery is all the film has to offer, somehow failing to paint a satisfying picture of life—but that’s wilfully ignoring the context of the story, overlooking the piercing message about the evil within . . . and frankly missing the point altogether.

As difficult as it might be to admit or even accept, and painful as it is to watch, ‘The Painted Bird’ is a remarkable piece of cinema. A stark meditation on xenophobia, superstition, and the deeply scarring effects of war yes, but also a broader and deeper look at the darkest recess of the human condition. One which refuses to compromise, slip into Hollywood cliché, or avert its eyes to child exploitation and abuse—a film which will crush your hand while dragging you along (and often over) the thin line between so-called civilisation, and our base tribal instincts.

The Bottom Line…

Václav Marhoul’s morbid outsider parable and bleak but striking odyssey of abuse and survival is a rough but worthwhile watch, a film which will test your nerve and very humanity, cinema at its most challenging and unforgiving—but an experience you won’t soon forget, whether you want to or not . . . and that’s the point. Another example of what world cinema has to offer over and beyond Hollywood, and the film which takes up the mantle from ‘Come and See’ for giving new meaning to the phrase “war is hell”.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Come and See (1985)

On the Belarusian border with occupied Poland in 1943, a Soviet teenager joins the resistance against the ruthless Nazi forces, only to be plunged into a bleak survival odyssey when confronted with the absolute horrors of war and the depths of human depravity . . . on all sides.

Directed by Elem Klimov and Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova and Liubomiras Laucevicius among others.

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