The Mill and the Cross

The Mill and the Cross (2011)

  • 78% of critics liked it
    (41 reviews)

  • 62% of users liked it
    (671 ratings)

What would it be like to step inside a great work of art, have it come alive around you, and even observe the artist as he sketches the very reality you are experiencing? Lech Majewski brings to life Pieter Bruegel's masterpiece The Way to Calvary, the story of the crucifixion, setting it in… More

Play Trailer

Unrated,
Directed By
Written By
Michael Francis Gibson
Genres
Art House & International, Drama
In Theaters
Sep 16, 2011 Limited
On DVD
Jan 31, 2012
Kino Lorber

Critic Reviews

  • Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

    We almost feel that we ourselves have accomplished something just by being around while Bruegel doodled.

  • Tom Long, Detroit News

    "The Mill and the Cross" might not be perfect, but it's stimulating, hypnotic and, in its unique way, exciting.

  • Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail

    The Mill and the Cross may thrill you. But be prepared for a fight. Twenty minutes in, your companion may throw up his or her arms and complain, "This is like watching a painting dry."

  • Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

    The Mill & the Cross invites us to inhabit a work of art along with the mind of the man who made it and to be enthralled by the images shared in vivid tableaux by visionary Polish director Lech Majewski.

  • Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

    What hangs before us is so striking, beautiful, strange, vast, horrifying, ethereal, lifelike - so alive - that we're desperate to enter the other side of the canvas, to be inside the painting.

Read all 18 critic reviews

See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

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Featured Audience Ratings

  • Greg S


    This unusual art movie illustrates the story behind Pieter Bruegel's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary," describing the stories of some of the characters who appear in the sprawling picture, examining Bruegel's strategy in composing the canvas, and sometimes using… More

  • Mark H


    What would it be like to step into a great work of art and experience the lives on the people within? That's the idea behind The Mill and the Cross a languid recreation of "The Way to Calvary, the 1564 masterpiece by Painter Pieter Bruegel. Throughout the film we often see… More

  • Walter M


    In "The Mill and The Cross," the day starts like any other, centuries past in Flanders, as people go about their business and the mill which stands over everything begins operations. Children are cared for and animals are tended to. The calm is broken by the Spanish… More

  • Alec B


    Its most comparable with the first act of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sunday in the Park with George', where we meet the characters in a famous painting and see how they relate to the artist who created them. Here, the film is more concerned with the inner mechanics of… More

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