The Painted Bird (2019)

Description

Featuring a staggering central performance from the young Petr Kotlár alongside a star-studded international ensemble including Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands and Barry Pepper. The Painted Bird has won ecstatic acclaim, with The Guardian’s Xan Brooks describing the film as “a monumental piece of work” rewarding the film with a five-star review. The film follows the journey of a boy, entrusted by his Jewish parents to an elderly foster mother in an effort to escape persecution. Following a tragedy, the boy is on his own. Wandering through the desecrated countryside, the boy encounters villagers and soldiers whose own lives have been brutally altered, and who are intent on revisiting this brutality on the boy. When the war ends, the boy has been changed, forever. Shot in crisp black and white 35mm – Václav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird does far more than simply depict the horror of war. It is an unflinching examination of the very worst of humanity.