Female Film Critics 24/375
Having caused not only controversy but massive ‘walk-outs’ during film festivals, Czech filmmaker Vaclav Marhoul’s three-hour, black-and-white adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s grim, gruesome autobiographical novel is an epic revelation of extreme cruelty and brutality during World War II.
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The Painted Bird pictures abject cruelty. The film version of Jerzy Kosinksi’s 1965 novella proves as hard to watch as the slim book was to read. And anyone who has not read the book but peeks at the plot might be dissuaded. The story is about a Jewish boy as he seeks succor or just to survive in Eastern Europe near the close of World War II.
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The Painted Bird transmits the distinct and unrelentingly dangerous sense that something wisely restrained has emphatically been let off the chain. It’s a difficult film; upsetting, cruel, vicious and absolutely harrowing. But it is also probably a masterpiece, and a vital reminder of the fundamental dignities upon which the entire concept of human rights exists.
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