I don't have a lot to to add to the many excellent reviews here, but I'll point out a salient feature that struck me: Silence.
The film largely proceeds with sparse dialogue. The protagonist, played by the remarkable Petr Kotlár (with only one film to his credit), rarely speaks or even acknowledges questions with a nod or a shake of his head. His dark eyes tell and reveal nothing - they're even interpreted as those of a vampire by a village shaman - yet still quietly convey to us something deep.
Without a distracting soundtrack, the film proceeds with quiet, muted (i.e., black and white) landscapes and horrors. Silence is almost always broken with violence (which there is a lot of, but none is gratuitous) or grief. Even when we learn the boy's name, it's not from being spoken.
That's the surface story. The deeper story is one of abuse and violence by cloistered villages and isolated, deeply-troubled, and suffering individuals. Their acquiescent silence makes them complicit in the monstrosity of humans not only during the war, but in their ordinary lives - an indictment of the human condition overall.
I can't recommend this film enough, even for reasons beyond my interpretation. It's a troubling film, but a must-watch.
The film largely proceeds with sparse dialogue. The protagonist, played by the remarkable Petr Kotlár (with only one film to his credit), rarely speaks or even acknowledges questions with a nod or a shake of his head. His dark eyes tell and reveal nothing - they're even interpreted as those of a vampire by a village shaman - yet still quietly convey to us something deep.
Without a distracting soundtrack, the film proceeds with quiet, muted (i.e., black and white) landscapes and horrors. Silence is almost always broken with violence (which there is a lot of, but none is gratuitous) or grief. Even when we learn the boy's name, it's not from being spoken.
That's the surface story. The deeper story is one of abuse and violence by cloistered villages and isolated, deeply-troubled, and suffering individuals. Their acquiescent silence makes them complicit in the monstrosity of humans not only during the war, but in their ordinary lives - an indictment of the human condition overall.
I can't recommend this film enough, even for reasons beyond my interpretation. It's a troubling film, but a must-watch.