The Painted Bird

The Painted Bird (, Interslavic: Kolorovana ptica) is a 2019 internationally co-produced black and white war drama film written, directed and produced by Václav Marhoul. An adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński's novel of the same name, it is the first film to feature the Interslavic language; Marhoul stated that he decided to use Interslavic so that no Slavic nation would nationally identify with the story. The Painted Bird was selected to play in competition at the 76th Venice International Film Festival and was chosen for 2019 Toronto International Film Festival as part of Special Presentations. The film also screened in the Dare strand at the 63rd BFI London Film Festival. It was selected as the Czech entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards making the December shortlist. Its brutal scenes led to walkouts from audiences at the Venice, Toronto and London film festivals. At the 35th Warsaw International Film Festival, the audience honored the film with a long ovation after its only screening. Plot In an unidentified area of war-torn Eastern Europe, a young boy lives with his elderly aunt. Startled at her death, the boy accidentally sets the house ablaze and leaves. His further adventures are a series of horrific encounters with ignorance, exploitation, and depravity. In the first village he reaches, an old healer buys him, but he is later blamed for bad luck and thrown in a river. He is next taken in by a miller and his wife. After the miller gouges out the eyes of a younger man seen exchanging glances with his wife, the boy runs off. He meets Lekh, a bird breeder who treats him well. Lekh has sex with a wild woman whom local village women later brutally rape with a bottle for also having sex with their teenage sons, after which Lekh hangs himself. The boy leaves. The boy finds a tame horse with a broken leg and takes it to the next village, where a villager kills it. Cossack Cavalry Corps force the villagers to deliver him to the Germans, identifying him as a Jew. The German soldier tasked with executing the boy releases him. Later caught by SS guards who bring him to a local town, he is saved from execution. A local priest takes him in, but then arranges for him to lodge with a local man named Garbos, who proves to be a pedophile. The boy causes Garbos's gruesome death. After the well-meaning priest dies, his replacement has no use for the boy, and he is run out of the town.