To understand my review, I should say where I'm coming from. I'm not especially interested in, or moved by, art. I AM, however, interested in history. I found this movie utterly fascinating as a depiction of history, specifically of history as it was commonly lived. (As opposed to, for example, "Caravaggio", or "The Agony and the Ecstasy", both of which I found too obsessed with "story" at the expense of showing me something I didn't know about history.)
The movie IS boring, as some people have complained, in the sense that nothing much happens, and indeed long stretches of time go by without a word being uttered. I did not try to watch it in one go but rather spread out over four nights, and I think this pacing worked very well for my purposes, allowing me to sink into the world for 25 minutes or so, then leave when I was saturated.
It is an added bonus that the movie is so beautiful, so crisp, so sharp in its colors, so mannered in the composition of almost every scene. Another reviewer complained that this crispness and vibrancy is not really true to the Bruegel. Maybe so. I've not seen the original, and the pictures I have seen certainly have more muted colors and less well defined edges. But, as I said, I don't care about the art as much as the history; and the history seems, IMHO, done very well. Towards the end Bruegel makes a rather heavy handed and utterly obvious reference to Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and the point that ordinary life goes on regardless of whether great events are happening somewhere. And that is, mostly, the ethos of the movie --- the portrayal of the ordinary events of life of the time, whether kids playing or barnyard animals being tended, against the backdrop of the specifically out of the ordinary of that time and place, namely the search for and treatment of heretics.
The only criticism I have is that (as opposed to the Auden reference which is, actually, rather delightful) there's rather too much "woe is humanity, why must be this way?" spoken voice-over throughout. Mary says pretty much nothing but these vapid, irritating, and completely content-free clichés, and maybe half of what Nicolaes Jonghelinck says is along the same lines. The movie would have been a whole lot stronger if it had simply shut up during those scenes and allowed the visuals to speak for themselves.
The one recommendation I would make is to try to see this at the highest resolution possible, at least Blu-Ray. The texture in almost every frame is so rich that you'd be missing out if you were to view it at DVD resolution, let alone at VHS quality.
Finally some other reviewers have complained that the scenes where everyone freezes are poorly executed, that one sees the animals moving, along with the occasional person in the background, and wind motion. This criticism, IMHO, misses the point. Obviously if the director wanted a Ken Burns effect, he could easily have obtained it: just take a photo and pan over it. The point of the minor movements in an otherwise still frame, IMHO, is to act as metaphor for the artist's mental composition. The bulk of the characters have been established, and they stand still, while the artist's mind toys with minor modifications of a few characters, which we see as those characters moving more or less substantially.
The movie IS boring, as some people have complained, in the sense that nothing much happens, and indeed long stretches of time go by without a word being uttered. I did not try to watch it in one go but rather spread out over four nights, and I think this pacing worked very well for my purposes, allowing me to sink into the world for 25 minutes or so, then leave when I was saturated.
It is an added bonus that the movie is so beautiful, so crisp, so sharp in its colors, so mannered in the composition of almost every scene. Another reviewer complained that this crispness and vibrancy is not really true to the Bruegel. Maybe so. I've not seen the original, and the pictures I have seen certainly have more muted colors and less well defined edges. But, as I said, I don't care about the art as much as the history; and the history seems, IMHO, done very well. Towards the end Bruegel makes a rather heavy handed and utterly obvious reference to Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and the point that ordinary life goes on regardless of whether great events are happening somewhere. And that is, mostly, the ethos of the movie --- the portrayal of the ordinary events of life of the time, whether kids playing or barnyard animals being tended, against the backdrop of the specifically out of the ordinary of that time and place, namely the search for and treatment of heretics.
The only criticism I have is that (as opposed to the Auden reference which is, actually, rather delightful) there's rather too much "woe is humanity, why must be this way?" spoken voice-over throughout. Mary says pretty much nothing but these vapid, irritating, and completely content-free clichés, and maybe half of what Nicolaes Jonghelinck says is along the same lines. The movie would have been a whole lot stronger if it had simply shut up during those scenes and allowed the visuals to speak for themselves.
The one recommendation I would make is to try to see this at the highest resolution possible, at least Blu-Ray. The texture in almost every frame is so rich that you'd be missing out if you were to view it at DVD resolution, let alone at VHS quality.
Finally some other reviewers have complained that the scenes where everyone freezes are poorly executed, that one sees the animals moving, along with the occasional person in the background, and wind motion. This criticism, IMHO, misses the point. Obviously if the director wanted a Ken Burns effect, he could easily have obtained it: just take a photo and pan over it. The point of the minor movements in an otherwise still frame, IMHO, is to act as metaphor for the artist's mental composition. The bulk of the characters have been established, and they stand still, while the artist's mind toys with minor modifications of a few characters, which we see as those characters moving more or less substantially.