Review: The Mill and the Cross

An example of the sophisticated visual style of the otherwise mediocre The Mill and the Cross.

Now here’s an inventive concept: a film adapted from a painting, or, perhaps more accurately, set inside a painting. The painting is Pieter Bruegel’s 1564 The Way to Cavalry, in which the artist changed the setting of the Crucifixion to Spain-occupied Flanders as a form of social commentary. What I mean by ‘set inside’ the painting is that we see the people and events that Bruegel depicts come to life — usually as if imagined by Bruegel, as part of his creative process. And thanks to expertly implemented CGI, each scene actually looks as if it fits with the visual appearance of the original work.

The problem: outside of the sheer visual beauty and conceptual originality of The Mill and the Cross, there is nothing to it. The film’s premise implies that it will give the original piece of work new meaning–or, at the very least, provide an original interpretation of it–but co-writer/director Lech Majewski does no such thing. As a literal enactment of the painting, the movie is boring, coming across as more existential than spiritual as it moves with the speed of molasses. As a more abstract expression of Bruegel’s creative process, it’s a failure — the scenes ‘within’ the painting are just as one-dimensional as the way in which Bruegel (Rutger Hauer) obtusely explains his intent to his patron in interludes. It’s impossible to resist the convenient cheap-shot: watching The Mill and the Cross is like watching paint dry.