The filmmakers DK and Hugh Welchman apply a painstaking oil painting technique to render this sweeping drama set in a 19th century Polish village.
The painstaking process behind “The Peasants,” the new painted film exercise from DK and Hugh Welchman, is only laid out after the film ends. As the credits roll, the directors show clips of painters viewing reference footage and then reproducing the images in oil on canvas, sometimes frame by frame.
The filmmakers pioneered the inventive animation technique on their previous feature, the Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent,” and they apply it here to a story of sweeping scale. Based on Wladyslaw Reymont’s novel, “The Peasants” follows Jagna (Kamila Urzedowska), a young woman in 19th century Poland who is driven into a loveless marriage with a wealthy widower (Miroslaw Baka) despite her ongoing flirtation with his strapping son, Antek (Robert Gulaczyk).
The world of the film is insular and provincial, stacked with themes of family and faith and peopled with vulnerable girls, resentful wives and brooding men quick to trade punches over perceived affronts to their pride or dignity.
“The Peasants” is divided into four seasons, and its inventive visual style proves richest when rendering landscapes — scenery that shifts in color and stroke with the climate. But as the story’s melodrama grows repetitive, so do the visuals. The painted animation is especially deficient in close-up shots (of which there are many); the smudgy brushstrokes blunt facial expressions. In these moments, the technique seems to be working against the film’s emotion rather than for it.
The Peasants
Rated R for sexual violence and nudity. In Polish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
