The Painted Bird

At first I thought I'd never get through this, and as time went on, I wondered if I should I even bother. But about a third of the way through, something gripped me and didn't let go. It's actually a profound and moving film where it's not just scene after scene of horror, but rather a journey of one boy's grotesque suffering during world war II. There is definitely a narrative if you stick with it. And considering the direction of the world in 2023, we should always remind ourselves of the depravity that humans are capable of. Ten years ago, I might have naively thought these kinds of crimes would be behind us, but as our world slips into its Orwellian future, films like this are more important than ever. Those who turn away don't want to be reminded of what we can inflict upon one another, understandably so. Ultimately, the film ends on a hopeful note. Stick with it.

Its like defecating on a canvas and calling it art. Sadistic and brutal for the sake of nothing. Perhaps man is not redeemable, but neither is this movie.

A powerful must see Holocaust film. The child lead is absolutely outstanding. Though his character is just an innocent child caught up in genocide, he has the unstoppable will, wit and grit of the most heroic of adult soldiers.

I read "The Painted Bird" 50 years ago and found the reading difficult but ehard to put down. The memories of the book haunted me for years. I later read reviews by critics who accused Kosinski of plagiarizing or inventing his material. Perhaps I had been duped into reading something I should not. One of the lines of critique engages in the notion that the book--and the movie--are depictions of Nazi Germany. Indeed, the critics say, the scenes did not take place in Germany. The Germans played a small role. It's therefore not a good movie about the Holocaust. But that's wrong. The greatest excesses of the Holocaust did in fact occur outside of Germany in Eastern Europe. Even German Jews, and for that matter Dutch and French Jews, were deported into Eastern Europe to be murdered. The story line of the Painted Bird is almost certainly apocryphal, a work of fiction, not a documentary. Like all fiction, it draws its material from human nature. The various depictions of ugliness provided in the book--and in the movie--might never have been witnessed by any one person, and a few might not have actually ever occurred, and only been invented in the imaginations of twisted people. But the fact remains the stories are there, the notions of depravity are there. And the fact remains that in Eastern Europe in the 1940s a massive amount of unspeakable, depraved cruelty happened. The movie almost perfectly captures Kozinski's story. One can argue whether the story itself should have been told, for the reasons I mentioned above. I believe that it is an important story, not as a document of historical detail, but as a document of human ignorance and cruelty. If we fail to understand that ignorance and cruelty were at the core of the depravity that enveloped Eastern Europe, we have missed not only what happened, but are inviting it to happen again.

I could barely get through the first half hour, it's too graphic and mean for my tastes

Václav Marhoul made a film and it's pretty graphic and it just doesn't work. Marhoul produced, wrote and directed 'The Painted Bird' based on the novel and, well, you be the judge. It was never boring, but more in the way people rubberneck at an accident cleared off to the side of the highway than anything else. It's a herculean task to get grasp of everything Marhoul is attempting to do and that overambitious effort leads to a miss. Is it art? Is it exploitative? Maybe some of column A and some of column B. Final Score: 5.0/10

From the opening scene to the very end, I cried. This is not an easy film to watch, I had to cover my eyes at times as a seemly endless parade of human cruelty, inhumanity and depravity marched by; but at the same time, it was touching and beautiful. Beautifully written, acted, filmed and directed. It’s a courageous movie and a testament to the endurance of the human spirit amid almost unimaginable suffering. It leaves you pondering the human condition and the blindness of hatred and prejudice—literally.

Normally I'm all for these types of movies, the really explicit films trying to make a point with artistic merit, challenging their audiencing, and I enjoy and defend these films... but yhis one doesn't have many redeeming values. The critics lie when they say it has emotional impact, it's more of a numbing sensation from being on the other end of a punch-drunk wrestler who just got his life ruined right before his eyes. The movie opens with a sequence of shocking animal cruelty -- points to the film for shock value, creativity, originality, and uses of quietness and minimalism by the way -- and from there it's just 3 hours of scene-after-scene unpleasantness. It's not entertaining, it KIND OF gets a reaction out of you, but it doesn't leave you emotionally compelled just turned off because there's no significance to what you're seeing for either character development, plot, or atmosphere. It's just unpleasant, miserable cruelty for the sake of exploitation and I think it's trying to have a message but it lost what it was in the process, because nothing seems to really correlate other than "let's abuse the little boy on-screen as brutally as possible as many times as possible" and I'm not sure what the point of it all was. There wasn't really a plot, just being passed to different acclaimed actors (Harvey Keitel, Udo Kier, and Stellan Skarsgard) who made me interested in the movie in the first place along with the acclaim. It was more horrific than any horror movie I'd seen despite being labeled a drama. The uncompromisingly bleak visuals do have a sad, memorable beauty to them when something inexcusable isn't happening. There's NC-17 movies I found less unpleasant than this one. Just not a good time in the slightest. It sounds terrible without context, but other war dramas, WWII movies like Schindler's List are at least enjoyable. They're a bit sad, but it's necessary. What scene in this movie feels necessary to the whole? There's no cohesion! Maybe it's my fault for watching an Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgard movie, like I should've expected Lars Von Trier, but I just wasn't prepared for arthouse horror tonight. I usually love those movies, but those I knew what I was getting into and I never got bored.

You have to be up for a dark and stark picture that describes much of the human condition. But if you are up for it, this is a well made and acted film.

The Painted Bird, based on the bleak-as-all-hell-not-at-all-biographical novel of the same name, is close to 3 hours of a young boy wandering around a continent torn apart by war and, it would seem, 18th century superstition. I picked up the book in 2014 and it was a very compelling read. The horrors it describes are savage and unrelenting, and it doesn't have many moments of levity. It also isn't very long. The movie adaptation is almost 170 minutes, and while it fits in plenty of violence, there's also an absurd amount of downtime. The book was well-paced and always had something going on, but the film often drags its heels, with characters standing around staring at nothing in particular or walking slowly around. It's like the film keeps getting interrupted by an annoying arthouse flick, and you find yourself actually anticipating the violence just to alleviate the tedium, something you didn't get with the book. It's got some fairly big name, but most of the actors you'll recognise have little more than cameos, with the great Stellan Skarsgård not even getting a single word of dialogue. It's a weird combination of Eli Roth torture porn and Terrence Malick arthouse pretentions. Its bloated length is compounded by its languid pacing, and had about an hour been cut out, which is very doable, it would have been an easier watch. I admire the talent and effort which went into it, and when it wants you to sit up and take notice, you always do. Not for the faint of heart, or those with less than 3 hours to kill, but it's a noble effort nonetheless.