The Mill & the Cross

Colour, 35 mm
Poland, Sweden, 2011, 97 min
Section: Another View

About the film

1564 was the year Pieter Bruegel completed one of his most famous epic paintings, The Procession to Calvary. Christ’s story depicted here is transferred to the period in Bruegel’s life when his nation was suffering under Spanish domination. The painting depicts more than five hundred people, each of whom conceals a unique story. The film by Polish director Lech Majewski is a stunning visual attempt to look into the lives of some of the characters who appear on the canvas. The viewer is transported to Bruegel’s artistic world, to the time of the late Middle Ages. The film traces the process of the creation of Bruegel’s masterpiece and allows us to penetrate the depth of its testimony. It captures the Passion of Christ and the suffering of others, innocent and unknown figures, and thus becomes a remarkable meditation not only on a work of art, but also on religious and philosophical issues.

About the director

Lech Majewski (b. 1953, Katowice, Poland) is a film and stage director, screenwriter and author, and is regarded as a leading filmmaker of our time. In 2006 the Museum of Modern Art in New York organised a major retrospective of his work; Majewski was the first Polish artist to be honoured in this way. He began as a film director at the end of the 1970s. After martial law was declared in the early 80s, he left his native Poland and emigrated to England and subsequently to the USA. He became celebrated not only as a filmmaker but also as an important opera director. He received considerable critical acclaim for The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004), which took away the Grand Prix from the Roma Independent Film Festival. Other more recent films include Wojaczek (1999), Angelus (2000) and Glass Lips (2007).