The Painted Bird

Directed by Vaclav Marhoul and based on the classic and controversial novel of the same name by Polish-American award-winning author Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird is a bleak but powerful wartime drama seen through the eyes of a lost Jewish boy wandering across eastern Europe during W.W.II as he endures all manner of abuse and witnesses the darker side of human nature.

Filmed in stunning Black and White and with minimal dialogue, the cinematography is both epic and intimate, evocative of the Soviet era classics like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985).

The unnamed nine or ten-year-old boy is sent away by his parents to a remote medieval farmhouse in the countryside to live with an old woman and escape persecution during the Nazi occupation. People in these isolated areas of Europe still lived primitively without electricity or running water, lending itself to beautifully stark pastoral landscapes of vast barren windswept fields dotted with livestock or a toiling farmer.

While waiting for his parents to return for him the old woman dies unexpectedly. Unable to wait any longer without a guardian to care for him, the boy begins a long grueling journey from hamlet to village across war-torn Eastern Europe to discover just how dangerous and cruel the world really is for a child who looks like him.

The film is divided in sections named after the people who shelter him for a time until he escapes from the abuse and exploitation he experiences at their hands. Everywhere he goes people are afraid he will bring bad luck and treat him like a demon or evil spirit often mistaking him for a gypsy because of his black colored eyes and dark Slavic complexion.

The theme of the film and the meaning of the title as shown in the film is given by a bird catcher who shows the boy that when a bird’s feathers are painted and the bird is released to return to its flock, it will not be accepted by the flock. The painted bird will be attacked and pecked to death simply because it looks different and is perceived as an imposter, an outsider just like the Jewish boy is attacked by people because of his appearance.

The story is relentlessly brutal and full of depraved cultural prejudices and customs folks practiced at the time. The boy is subjected and exposed to every kind of ill treatment imaginable by the peasants he meets. He survives only on the fringes of society with social outcasts like himself.

What stands out is the film’s use of beautiful compositions and lighting to tell a harrowing story with almost no dialogue. Images of close up facial expressions make a powerful emotional connection with the audience. The action is deftly conveyed through economical use of montage sequence editing.

The film revolves around the brilliant performance by Petr Kotlar a non-professional actor playing the young boy who is mesmerizing and keeps us transfixed by his every move. There are some surprisingly big-name cameo performances throughout by Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgard, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands, and Barry Pepper.

The Painted Bird is an exquisite must-see arthouse film but not for the faint of heart. Aside from the compelling story telling techniques employed, the images are striking in their visceral beauty and shocking in their raw cruelty and horror.

The Painted Bird was the Czech Republic’s official Oscar entry and was shortlisted for the 2019 Academy Award season winning much critical praise around the world for its raw honest portrayal of not only war atrocities but also man’s baser instincts. It was recently part of the European Union Film Festival.

JP

Joker

Yes, this is the same “Clown Prince of Crime” from the Batman franchise, but don’t be fooled, this is not a comic book franchise movie. This is an adult themed origin story about the human side of the man who laughs, Arthur Fleck, a pitiful figure who will eventually become Batman’s arch nemesis.

It’s not what you would expect from a supervillain film. Todd Phillips’ Joker is a gritty realistic take on the character. It’s a dark tragic tale that treats its bedraggled antihero with great sympathy and insight, resulting in a memorable but dismal story that feels like a low budget independent film.

The film is set in 1981, when Bruce Wayne is still a young boy and only appears briefly at the end of Joker, setting up the personal clash between these iconic characters. What’s not well known is how this insecure and tormented man who works as a party clown, is driven to be one of the most feared villains in Gotham.

The Gotham City of Joker is a shadowy, crime ridden, rat infested retro New York City of the 70s and 80s as seen in Scorsese’s early films reinforced by a bleak gloom drenched visual palate. Arthur Fleck is a kind of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (1976) seemingly quiet and gentle, trying to bring some joy into his drab world as a party clown and aspiring stand-up comic, but inside he harbors rage and anger.

He’s mentally unstable, and his strange medical condition that makes him laugh uncontrollably when he is nervous or under stress makes people uncomfortable. They sometimes think he’s mocking them, which can get him into trouble with the wrong people.

But Arthur tries hard to see the positive side of life in the face of his misery. He always tries to be honest and do the right thing. His mother tells him to “always smile and put on a happy face”. But it just seems to make things worse and society just keeps pushing him to the limits of tolerance.

The city’s denizens eventually get the better of him and in fact, he does get into trouble with the wrong people. He is bullied, name called and violently beaten up because of his clownish cackle, which can be analogous to the stigma of mental illness.

Joaquin Phoenix’s moving portrayal is convincingly creepy as a man on the verge of being unhinged. His performance as someone who seems to constantly be on the brink between love and hate is scary and mesmerizing to watch. He makes Arthur Fleck a sympathetic character who society has pushed too far until a revelation about his past sends him over the edge. 

Joker, in his first stand-alone film, is a disturbing, shocking and painful vision that reflect our own angry hate-filled and corrupt times. It’s an uncompromising and uniquely intimate character study done with great empathy and shown through an unsentimental lens that talks directly to our fears and insecurities as a society at large.

Icelandic composer extraordinaire, Hildur Guonadottir’s cello score is not only hauntingly beautiful but also perfectly evocative of Arthur’s tragic journey into mayhem. She was also the cellist on Sicario (2015) and The Revenant (2015), and recently won the golden globe for the Joker music and an Emmy for the award-winning TV series Chernobyl.

Joker is nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Hildur’s music score, the most of any film this year, which is a testament to its powerful appeal.

JP