The Mill and the Cross

Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York star in this drama that focuses on a dozen of the 500 characters depicted in Pieter Brugel the Elder's 1564 painting The Way To Calvary. A picture that shows Jesus Christ's suffering and religious persecution.

"A miracle of technology in the service of the artistic imagination, Lech Majewski’s brilliant film transports its viewers into the living, breathing world of Pieter Bruegel’s dense frieze of Christ’s passion, The Way to Calvary... Bruegel’s 1564 painting sets the drama of the crucifixion within a rustic Flanders scene teeming with everyday life.

"Likewise Majewski – using computer-generated blue-screen compositing, new 3D technology, just-so location shooting in Poland, Austria and New Zealand and a massive backdrop he painted by hand – tells the story of the painting largely through closely observed secular rituals of 16th century Flemish daily life, in all its earth-toned grubbiness, with occasional scenes revealing Bruegel’s artistic choices and the politics of the day." (Source: San Francisco International Film Festival 2011)

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