The Mill and the Cross

Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross, from 2011, is a singular meditation on the power of art. In a roundabout fashion, the film documents the background behind Peter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting, The Way to Cavalry. Majewski, with the help of CGI manipulation, crafts his film so that it resembles the 16th century Flanders that Bruegel captured on canvas. Numerous Bruegel masterpieces are interpolated into the film. This gives The Mill and the Cross not only the earthy feel of peasant life contained within Bruegel's paintings, but, also, the era's preoccupation with the omnipresent specter of death. 

Dialogue is used minimally in the film. Those expecting rich characterization and a traditional narrative arc may find the film wanting. Majewski has stated that he didn't want to make a typical story based film, but was searching for something with a more contemplative feel. What verbiage there is comes primarily from Rutger Hauer as Bruegel and Michael York playing his patron, Niclaes Jonghelinck. Bruegel muses on the spiritual and aesthetic underpinnings of his work while Jonghelinck provides social and political context. 

What plot there is amounts to a recreation of Christ's Passion with Charlotte Rampling embodying the anguish of the Virgin Mother. Majewski juxtaposes the suffering of Christ with the persecution of Protestants and other heretics in the Low Countries, which was at that time under the control of Catholic Spain. By this method, Majewski presents Bruegel as conveying how the martyrdom and teachings of Christ still had existential resonance in his time.

The Way to Cavalry by Peter Bruegel

The Mill and the Cross had its genesis in a proposed documentary that Majewski undertook with art critic, Michael Francis Gibson. The documentary roots of the project are still very much in evidence in the film. The costumes look splendid and splendidly lived in. The music, though not always period specific, is effective. The verisimilitude of the film gives it a keening power, but it also gives it the feel of a religious diorama. All in all, though, I feel that Majewski has succeeded in portraying Bruegel as an artist who used his work to grapple with the issues of his day and man's eternal spiritual strivings.