Rating 1I

Brutish, brilliant, and Breughel describe The Mill and the Cross.  It is not for the squemish.  That noted it is an extraordinary film.

Breughel was active in the middle 1500’s when Flanders was under the yoke of Catholic Spain at the height of the era of persecution of non-believers.  The Spanish Inquisition lingered and all non-Catholics were either crucified or had to become a “Converso”.  Even then, gruesome tests were conducted to determined who was faithful to the “true religion” and many did not survive the tests themselves.  The movie depicts this both accurately and graphically. There are crucifixions shown in great detail and the viewer is not spared the outcome from the whipping, beating capture of the less faithful through the actual crucifixion itself.  You have been warned.  And the scenes of such are long and painful for the audience.

That noted, this is still an excellent film.  The general plot is a decoding of Breughel’s painting “The Procession to Calvary”, which hangs in the HistorishKunstMuseum in Vienna.  The film takes you through how each section of the painting was developed and what it is meant to convey.  It is a powerful, almost religious exegesis of the painting.  And both the setting and the costumes strongly support the cast in bringing the message to the audience.  The dialogue is quite sparse, the action is slow, but the visual effects carry the plot very well.  The scenery is extraordinary despite being set in one little Flemish Rennaisance town in Flanders.

From what I know of that period in Northern Europe, I would suggest that the costumes, behaviors of adults and children alike are accurate.  Much of the film shows the quotidian activities of the inhabitants of the town.  And these people and their daily life add strongly to the sense of time and place.  The Catholic Spanish soldiers are, simply stated, scary.  It is almost a thriller.  There are no “good guys” in this movie who come to the rescue of the persecuted.  The citizens of the town are simply subjected to the cruelty of the Spaniards.  Anyone who protests is crucified.

If having read this, you are still interested in seeing the movie, i would suggest taking a look at the painting first.  Or rather studying it in great detail.  Let your eye move into each section of the painting, and from that you might be able to anticipate the movie.  It is not all violence and cruelty.  Daily life, mothers, children, fathers and townsfolk, continue with ordinary life of eking out subsistence living.  They laugh, play instruments, dance and the children behave normally down to the siblings teasing one another.

And do not misread me here.  The violence is part of everyday life for these people, it is not added to be sensational, it is not gratuitous.  It is simply the way things were in Flanders in the 1500’s.

Despite all the harshness of the film, I would recommend it highly.  It is superbly filmed, the setting and colors of the costumes are beautiful.  The film moves slowly, which magnifies life both small and large for these people.  And the movie is a real break from boy meets girl, father-son bonding, coming of age, action thrillers, clever bank heists and the rest.  It is truly a different evening out.

For further reading on this era, I recommend “The Dogs of War, Ferdinand and Isabella”, by James Reston, Jr and any of the novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte which are set in this era.  Reston offers an overview of the origins of the Spanish Inquisition and Perez-Riverte tells the story from a soldier’s viewpoint.

This movie rates a 1 and an I for intellectual stimulation.  It is certainly thought provoking.

Kind regards,

Steve

G. Stephen DeCherney, MD, MPH
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Division of Endocrinology
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, North Carolina