7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Behind every great painting lies an even greater story.
Starring: Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling, Michael YorkHistory | 100% |
Drama | 82% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Equal parts art history lesson and CGI spectacle, political period drama and spiritual meditation, Polish director Lech Majewski's The Mill and the
Cross is a film that's impossible to pigeonhole. At its simplest, it's about the Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the painting of
his 1564 masterpiece, "The Way to Calvary," a surreal landscape dense with subversive imagery. But this is no mere biopic. While there are many
films about artists and their inspirations--Andrei Rublev, Basquiat, Girl with a Pearl Earring--The Mill and the Cross
goes a step further and actually takes us inside the world of Bruegel's painting, a dualistic world of grim suffering and vivid color, religious
persecution and the possibility of redemption.
It's essentially a high-concept, feature-length homage. Majewski (The Gospel According to Harry) brings Bruegel's two-dimensional painting to
life in a series of dramatic vignettes and tableaux vivants that explain the symbolism and characters in "The Way to Calvary" while being exceptionally
striking in their own right. I imagine the effect is a bit like going to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and staring entranced at the painting until
falling into a deep daydream of Inquisitors and crucifixions.
Since The Mill and the Cross isso dependent on its painterly visuals, it's doubly important that the film be treated with care on Blu-ray. Thankfully, Kino-Lorber's 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation is a total knock-out. I was concerned at first after seeing the film's trailer on another Kino release, as there was some severe banding present in certain fine gradients of color, but there are no substantial compression problems here whatsoever. As you can probably guess by the sheer amount of compositing and layering required in the finished film, The Mill and the Cross was shot digitally--using the Red One camera--and the raw footage was toned in post-production to both match the CGI backdrops and arrive at a convincing Renaissance color palette. It's simply gorgeous. The hues are rich and vibrant--especially reds--and the image in general has a great punchiness, with deep blacks and strong contrast. Clarity is exceptional as well, and almost jarring at times. In most films, using conventional depth of field, normally only a "slice" of the picture is in focus, with the the areas in front and behind that slice going progressively softer. This is simple optics, and if you've ever used a camera before, you know what I'm talking about. In The Mill and the Cross, however, every plane is in focus since each layer of the image was comped in separately. In the actors' faces and the fabrics of their costumes, you'll notice extremely fine high definition texture, especially in close-ups. I can't imagine the film would be nearly as stunning on standard definition DVD.
If you're thinking a film set inside the world of a painting is bound to have lifeless, two-dimensional sound design, think again. The Mill and the Cross features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that's more than just lively--it's engaging and immersive and sometimes even assaulting. Yes, the film has its share of quiet, meditative stretches, but these are punctuated by hefty, all-surrounding effects that make great use of the surround channels. The thunder of the Inquisitors' horses as they bolt toward you. The cavernously echoing footsteps inside the mill and the the subwoofer-assisted rumble and scraping of the gears being set into motion. The air-splitting crack of whips and the clinking of chains. It all sounds wonderful, vibrant throughout the range and rooted with strong bass, and the recurring theme of the film's score--two women's voices loosely harmonizing--fills in the sonic cracks. The narration and sparse dialogue are clean and balanced as well. I didn't have to touch my remote to adjust the volume once. My only complaint is that there are no subtitle options at all, not even for those who might need an English SDH track.
There a plenty of films where paintings come to life--see Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast or Julie Taymor's Frida --but perhaps none so immersive and complete as The Mill and the Cross, in which director Lech Majewski takes us inside Pieter Bruegel's "The Way to Calvary." It's a gorgeous, contemplative film that explores the hows and whys of artistic creation, and as you'd hope, it looks beautiful in high definition. One word of warning: If you've watched Rutger Hauer's other recent film lately, Hobo with a Shotgun , it's hard to keep from imagining him going after the Inquisitors with a pump-action twelve-gauge.
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