The Mill and the Cross (2011): Breugel Comes Alive

I’ve always had a thing for Breugel (i.e Peter Breugel the elder). A print of his painting The Peasant Wedding (c1568) hung in my in-laws’ kitchen for years: a score or more Flemish peasants dining at a long table in a large, simple room, plates of food being served, grog being poured, musicians playing, everyone having a good old time – just a colorful, homey, gemütlich (comfortable) scene. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches  (Historic Art) Museum  and got to see the original of that work, and  many other Breugels as well, among them the  fantastic Procession to Calvary (1564), which, coincidentally, just happens to be the subject of this film, The Mill and the Cross, a  fascinating work of art in its own right.

The Procession to Calvary is a fascinating painting in a lot of ways. Ostensibly, it is a depiction of a moment in the Passion of Christ, where Jesus, struggling to drag his cross toward Golgotha Hill, stumbles and falls. As depicted by Breugel, however, this event is barely noticeable. Instead, we are presented with a vast panoramic landscape, filled with hundreds of people: peasants, thieves, musicians, children, priests, red-jacketed soldiers, and their horses,  carts, livestock, a distant city, and an improbable mill, precariously perched on a dramatic crag overlooking the entire scene. A lot of the crowd are streaming in the direction of the execution event on the distant hill, not unlike crowds of our generation gathering for an outdoor concert. In the foreground are the distraught Virgin Mary and her retinue.  Everyone is garbed in contemporary (sixteenth century) dress, excepting Jesus himself, and possibly Mary, and the technology and other historical indicia are clearly intended to represent the present, not the biblical past.

The Mill and the Cross movie starts with a camera shot tracking across this picture. All is still, as we’d expect in a painting. Soon, almost like an hallucination, we notice that some of the people are moving about.  Then, in an extraordinary moment,  the artist himself appears, supervising some of the actors , arranging the tableau. What director Lech Majewski and writer Michael Francis Gibson are doing here is literally bringing a work of art to life. Along the way, we get some insight into Breugel’s methods, as well as his artistic, political and spiritual aims for the painting. On this level, watching the movie is a bit like getting a live action master class explicating a great work of art.

Perhaps more interestingly, Majewski selects a few of the individuals in various parts of the work and shows us their lives and how they got to this place at this time. He does this so realistically, through beautiful live action cinematography seamlessly  merged with 2D and 3D CGI, applying modern technology to the old master, that it feels we are watching a technicolor documentary somehow filmed five hundred years ago. The costuming, the environment, and  many of the scenes are just visually stunning, and, in some cases uncomfortably honest in their brutality.

For life in Flanders at that time was no picnic. The (red-jacketed) Spanish were in charge and did not hesitate to use force to keep it that way, and to enforce strict adherence to Catholic orthodoxy, just as the ideas of the protestant reformation were taking hold. As Jesus was persecuted by the Romans, so were the Dutch and Flemish by their overlords, as Majewski unwaveringly shows us. Domestic life was awfully primitive as well, by twenty-first century standards, and it is absolutely fascinating to peek into Breugel’s home, for example, as a new day starts, his many children tumble out of their bed (singular) and queue up for  a breakfast of milk and bread. As to the windmill perched high on the rocky crag, the camera takes us inside to see its gears and works, and the pattern of a country miller’s life.    

There is very little dialogue, mostly between Breugel (Rutger Hauer) and his wealthy patron Nicolaes Jonghelinckand (Michael York), and a voiceover by Jesus’ mother (Charlotte Rampling). Breugel describes what he is trying to do, and what various parts of his masterpiece will represent. Mary expresses a mothers anguish.

Aside from what I have described there is no real plot, and the pacing of The Mill and the Cross is leisurely, so I'd caution you not to watch this when sleepy or intoxicated. Nor will you enjoy it if you’re looking for action or romance. There are a few disturbing bits of violence, and you may have to close your eyes for a few moments if you are squeamish about such things. That said, the intellectual and sensual pleasures of this beautiful movie are many. It’s a wondrous, stimulating work of art about a work of art. You’ll feel invigorated, and perhaps even virtuous, after watching it. I  know I want to see it again.  A widescreen TV is recommended.

Available on DVD and BluRay, and streaming from Netflix.