CULTURE
By Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP
Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP
FAVORITE FILMS
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S
omewhere in rural eastern Europe, a young boy (Petr Kotlár) is living with his aunt, Marta (Nina Sunevic), on a farm as World War II breaks out. They raise chickens and the house is comfortable, but the land is barren. It won’t be for long, Marta tells him. He writes a message on a piece of paper and attaches it to a little boat he made and sets it down the river. It says, “Come and fetch me.” The elderly Marta dies, leaving him alone. He drops a lamp near her body that sets the house on fire. The boy wanders into a village where the people beat him because he is a stranger. The local medicine woman, Olga (Alla Sokolova), says he is responsible for all the bad things happening, but she buys him so that he can work for her. Then he and many villagers become sick. She buries him up to his neck in a field to sweat out the fever but abandons him. He escapes from attacking crows and finds refuge with an older man, Lekh (Lech Dyblik), who keeps birds. One day, the man paints the wings of a small bird and tosses it into the air to join the birds circling above. But the birds attack and kill the little bird and it falls to earth. The boy is stunned at Lekh’s cruelty. The boy is trying to find his way home, and it is a tragic journey because of the terrible things that happen to him. A priest (Harvey Keitel) is kind and gives him a cruci-
fix to wear, letting us know what we suspected: the boy is Jewish and must hide in plain sight. The priest places him with a farmer (Julian Sands), not knowing he is a child molester. When the boy is captured by Germans, Hans (Stellan Skarsgård) is sent to shoot him but lets him escape. The Painted Bird is directed by Václav Marhoul, but any accolades for this cinematic dissertation on human misery belong to cinematographer Vladimír Smutný. Filmed in black and white, the stark landscape scenes are masterpieces of minimalism that evoke feelings of isolation and loneliness; the closeups are compelling still portraits. The balance of narrative and image is in perfect tension. This film, at just under three hours, is not for everyone. The depiction of human cruelty is too intense for most. Christians in the film are at once religious and superstitious, kind, but mostly cruel, even to one another. However, the ending sequence of events, where we finally learn the boy’s name, is a blessed reprieve. Not yet rated • Bestiality, explicit sexuality, offscreen child abuse, cruelty to people and animals, and war violence.
44 • September 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org
CULTURE 0920.indd 44
7/31/20 10:14 AM
REBUILDING PARADISE: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FILMS (2); GREYHOUND: SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC/NIKO TAVERNISE
Sister Rose’s
THE PAINTED BIRD
LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; THE PAINTED BIRD: COURTESY OF IFC FILMS (2)
Sister Rose is a Daughter of St. Paul and the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies. She has been the award-winning film columnist for St. Anthony Messenger since 2003 and is the author of several books on Scripture and film, as well as media literacy education.
