The film focuses on a dozen of the 500 characters depicted in Bruegel's painting. The theme of Christ's suffering is set against religious persecution in Flanders in 1564.
A promising professor of literature who survives a horrible car accident finds peace in sleep, where he can live a parallel life immersed in a dream-like dimension populated by strange visions and Dantean allegorical imagery.
Director:
Lech Majewski
Stars:
Michael Tatarek,
Elzbieta Okupska,
Jacenty Jedrusik
Based on his own novel Metaphysics, Lech Majewski crafts intimate passion plays and creates "a luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love and death" (CHICAGO READER). When a ... See full summary »
Director:
Lech Majewski
Stars:
Claudine Spiteri,
Chris Nightingale,
Barry Chipperfield
Episodes from the last few years in the life of iconic Silesian poet Rafal Wojaczek. His provocative and scandalous life as well as tragic premature death made him a true literary legend.
Director:
Lech Majewski
Stars:
Krzysztof Siwczyk,
Dominika Ostalowska,
Andrzej Mastalerz
A young, idealistic poet, turns his back on civilization and goes to small, backwood village, rents a bed in the house of an old woman, and decides to make his living as a lumberjack. Soon ... See full summary »
Director:
Witold Leszczynski
Stars:
Edward Zentara,
Ludwik Pak,
Daniel Olbrychski
The film focuses on a dozen of the 500 characters depicted in Bruegel's painting. The theme of Christ's suffering is set against religious persecution in Flanders in 1564.
A few minutes before the end of the movie, a red automobile crosses the background between two houses, while Bruegel and Nicholas Jonghelinck are speaking in the foreground. See more »
Soundtracks
Miserere
By Antonio Lotti
Performed by the Christ the King Cathedral Choir (Chorus Master Krzysztof Kaganiec) See more »
It can be said that Lech Majewski's 2011 film depicts "art imitating life, imitating art, imitating life, which also typifies the layer upon layer of meaning and implication to be found in the film. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary" creates the story line for this completely unconventional portrayal of life in the 1600's and Bruegel's technique or the process he may of worked through while creating the painting. Bruegal's painting is much more than a back drop and can almost be seen as a central character, perhaps even a brilliant supporting actor.
As the film weaves in and out of scenes found in the painting, the characters are brought to life portraying their personal reality behind the snippet of time in which they are actually portrayed. In a further layer in the film consider the juxtaposition of good and evil, peasants innocently awaking to begin a day's work, the musicians playing and dancing with merry abandon, contrasted with the whipping and murder of the young husband by the Spaniards. As Bruegel considers the crucifixion scene he actually begins to interact with the painting. He signals to the miller (a euphemism for God) to stop; and as the miller brings the mill (and seemingly life itself) to a standstill the moment is so unsettling as the windmill, looking mysteriously like the cross Christ has suffered on, turns counterclockwise.
The final shot in this lusciously disconcerting film pans out from the painting "The Way to Calvary" as it hangs in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and leaves one to ponder the art each of us has seen, and the snapshots in time that art depicts. Majewski's brilliant film gives pause to consider the lives lived behind all the images of all the art over the ages, and so much more.
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It can be said that Lech Majewski's 2011 film depicts "art imitating life, imitating art, imitating life, which also typifies the layer upon layer of meaning and implication to be found in the film. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary" creates the story line for this completely unconventional portrayal of life in the 1600's and Bruegel's technique or the process he may of worked through while creating the painting. Bruegal's painting is much more than a back drop and can almost be seen as a central character, perhaps even a brilliant supporting actor.
As the film weaves in and out of scenes found in the painting, the characters are brought to life portraying their personal reality behind the snippet of time in which they are actually portrayed. In a further layer in the film consider the juxtaposition of good and evil, peasants innocently awaking to begin a day's work, the musicians playing and dancing with merry abandon, contrasted with the whipping and murder of the young husband by the Spaniards. As Bruegel considers the crucifixion scene he actually begins to interact with the painting. He signals to the miller (a euphemism for God) to stop; and as the miller brings the mill (and seemingly life itself) to a standstill the moment is so unsettling as the windmill, looking mysteriously like the cross Christ has suffered on, turns counterclockwise.
The final shot in this lusciously disconcerting film pans out from the painting "The Way to Calvary" as it hangs in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and leaves one to ponder the art each of us has seen, and the snapshots in time that art depicts. Majewski's brilliant film gives pause to consider the lives lived behind all the images of all the art over the ages, and so much more.