The Painted Bird – Movie Review

what's up everybody and welcome back to
another movie review I'm Moh, the
the movie I want to take a look at right now
is the painted bird now this one comes
from ifc it is directed by please bear
with me
Vaclav mahal I hope I pronounced that
correctly
and this one tells the story of a young
Jewish boy somewhere in eastern Europe
that seeks refuge during world war ii
where he encounters
many different characters it is based on
the very controversial novel
by jersey Kozinski, I think this uh book
is banned in Poland
uh or it was at some point it still is
or it's not whatever it was
books being banned is you know that is a
feat
you have to be really kind of out there
to um
to get your book banned in certain
countries
um also the writer of this novel
claims that he experienced a lot of this
during world war
ii and how he was separated from his
parents and
he encountered people like this and he
had to survive on his own
then it came out uh that this was all
made up
all fiction so yeah that's what we're
dealing with
here so okay um
I never saw any trailers to this film
never saw a poster
I saw one still from it when I got the
email sent to me to ask if I wanted to
review this
saw it was black and white I was like
cool this could be a beautiful
looking film you know it's almost three
hours long
set in world war ii this could be a very
devastating
and emotionally impactful
you know uh film based in uh
you know world war ii like this could be
another like Schindler's list situation
uh even getting down to you know uh
you know a long run time black and white
like this could be
something to talk about and when I saw
all the reviews online
people were claiming it was a
masterpiece and like this is one of the
the best films I've ever seen and all
that stuff and I was like oh my godlike
what are we getting ourselves into
so I was kind of excited to see it you
know you have to watch something kind of
light afterward
for sure but um experiences like this
don't come often and so I was
I was curious to see what this one would
do
so I saw it and I gotta tell you
I think ifc broke me on this one i
see sometimes dishes out great movies
sometimes
dishes out bad movies you just never
know what you're gonna get
I am speechless and I don't know if
that's a good thing or a bad thing
I will not grade this movie i will also
not recommend it
um I'm just going to talk about it you
can decide for yourself and
you might think that that's like reverse
psychology like it's so controversial i
just gotta
check it out now
I never want to see this movie again
never I recognize some of the
good stuff in it but
I never want to watch this again so
take that for what you will um
so some of the positives you know let's
be nice for a little bit
the cinematography is some of the best
black and white
cinematography I have ever seen in a
film it is absolutely stunning
the textures of everything
in every single scene are rich and
detailed
and it just provides this really
kind of um somber atmosphere
even against the contrast of the the
horrors that we're seeing in this film
it's just beautiful it's kind of
peaceful
this black and white cinematography and
like I said super textured
you can see everything in intricate
detail
it is absolutely stunning there's even
some shots that look like like
you could pause and you could uh pass it
off as a picture
from that time period and you'd be
like oh I pulled this from the archives
that's how great it is once again
I have no issues with the way this film
looks absolutely
breathtaking
some of the performances are good um
some are committed that's for sure um
but I'd say for portraying some pretty
awful people
uh even the little boy in this film
that's
you know going from town to town person
to the person
that's a lot for this kid to do I guess
he does a pretty good job
because you're following this kid's
journey um he's kind of cutting through
all these people's lives and we're
seeing
uh these people's lives through his
perspective I thought for the
subject matter for sure um and just the
the daunting task to carry this film
I thought you know he did what he did
and some of the other uh supporting
characters are
are good and then some of them
like I said they're very committed to
what their craft so
um and that's about it that's all I can
really say
about this in terms of positives okay
well
one more thing I will say that for the 2
hour and 49
minutes run time it's not that daunting
um you know I don't mind long movies
the pace of it is not bad it really
isn't
it is kind of moves along at a steady
pace and it keeps your interest
for better or worse in each scene um
and also you have the wonderful
cinematography to look at it's just
the 2 hours and 49 minutes run time could
have been it's its downfall
and how it was executed in pacing
but it's actually not that bad
so
this film like I said has a lot in terms
of subject matter
there is a lot of domestic abuse
abuse in general animal abuse pedophilia
bestiality