Kick-Back Friday: #196
The Mill and the Cross (2011): Slowly, methodically—but sometimes violently—Bruegel’s famous painting The Way to Calvary comes to life through the varying perspectives of its host of characters, most of whom are Flemish peasants going about their mundane lives in the midst of Christ’s march to his crucifixion. Polish director Lech Majewski toys mightily with varying perspectives here and exploits the play among them: from the tension between two and three dimensions to a deeper penetration of the painting that imagines what lies behind the depicted settings. Rutger Hauer, as Bruegel, and Michael York, as his patron, are an interactive unit within the painting and act as an essential reference for the work’s composition and its use of allegory. While The Mill and the Cross (like so much art, I guess) approaches the abyss of pretension, its stunning craftsmanship pulls it from the brink.
Still of Rutger Hauer as Bruegel from The Mill and the Cross.
A native East Tennessean, Barbara Martin is a formerly practicing, board-certified neurologist who received her BS (psychology, summa cum laude) and MD from Duke University before completing her postgraduate training (internship, residency, fellowship) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She has worked in academia, private practice, medical publishing, drug market research, and continuing medical education (CME). For the last 3 years, she has worked in a freelance capacity as a medical writer, analyst, and consultant. Follow Dr. Barbara Martin on Google + and Twitter.
