The Mill and the Cross
An extraordinary imaginative leap, Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross combines old and new technologies allowing the viewer to live inside the painting – Flemish master Pieter Bruegel's 1564 "The Procession to Calvary," an epic canvas depicting both Christ's crucifixion and the artist's homeland brutalization by Spanish occupiers. (...) Immersive museum-meets-cinema experience a la Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark.
While hardly an exercise in strict realism a la The Girl With the Pearl Earring, the pic details rustic Flanders life with loving care, from costuming to simple machinery. Pic's narrative content is hardly straightforward or propulsive. Yet the film is never dull, and frequently entrancing.
(...) Lensing wrapped nearly a year and a half ago, followed by lengthy post-production labor resulting in the remarkable mesh of visual elements that recreate Breughel's art and times.
Dennis Harvey, Variety
Duration: 91 min
Dialogue: English
Age limit: K15
