Horrifyingly beautiful – but I will never watch it again: Painted Bird review

The Painted Bird opens with a young boy (Jewish) running through a forest and clutching his pet ferret. He is being chased by some other boys (not Jewish) who beat him to the ground, douse his ferret in petrol and set it on fire. The boy watches as his pet burns alive and I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed a ferret being burned alive, but my God, I’m not going to get those high-pitched cries out of my head any day soon, just as I’m not going to get this film out of my head any day soon.

You’d think, after those opening few minutes, things could only get better. But they don’t. They really, really, really don’t. And there are still two hours and 47 minutes to go. Painted Bird was shown last year at the Venice film festival where several viewers walked out. I don’t blame them but, on the other hand, I do: it is easy to look away. Too easy. Plus, the film has been hailed as ‘a masterpiece’ by some and it is beautiful to look at, even if it’s horrifyingly beautiful. Or beautifully horrifying. Take your pick.

The film has been adapted by the Czech filmmaker Vaclav Marhoul from Jerzy Kosinski’s 1965 book about the sufferings of ‘a Jewish stray’ left to fend for himself amid the blasted landscape of Eastern Europe during the second world war. Kosinski initially claimed it was autobiographical, which later became controversial, but that is a story for another day. (He went on to write Being There, by the way.)

There are brief appearances from Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands and Stellan Skarsgard, but mostly we’re with the boy (a devastating performance from Petr Kotlar).