How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★★★☆ 19 January 2015
This article is a review of THE TRIBE.Seen at the London Film Festival 2014 (For more information, click here.)
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No dialogue. No narration. No subtitles. Set in a Ukrainian boarding school for the deaf, THE TRIBE is as brutal and explicit as it is original. Such a maverick work, in fact, challenges BOYHOOD as the best film of 2014.
Feature film debut by writer-director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, who emerges fully formed from the cinematic womb, is a helmer to watch. Hiring a talented cast, the filmmaking team have fashioned a scolding cauldron; a baptism of fire coming-of-age story that sears itself into the mind.
Michael Haneke’s HIDDEN initially springs to mind as the camera looks on as if surveilling. A young man, Sergei (Grigory Fesenko), at a bus stop, has arrived for his first day at a new school. Long patient takes belie the storm coming. Atmosphere-setting and audience respect go hand in hand. No one has accompanied Sergei on such a big day, representative perhaps of the isolation of being a deaf-mute.
Feature film debut by writer-director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, who emerges fully formed from the cinematic womb, is a helmer to watch. Hiring a talented cast, the filmmaking team have fashioned a scolding cauldron; a baptism of fire coming-of-age story that sears itself into the mind.
Michael Haneke’s HIDDEN initially springs to mind as the camera looks on as if surveilling. A young man, Sergei (Grigory Fesenko), at a bus stop, has arrived for his first day at a new school. Long patient takes belie the storm coming. Atmosphere-setting and audience respect go hand in hand. No one has accompanied Sergei on such a big day, representative perhaps of the isolation of being a deaf-mute.
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One might argue that a newbie utilised as our entry into a hermetic, cliquey arena (that word becomes more appropriate) is a staple of visual fiction, from Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) in ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ to John Carter (Noah Wyle) in ‘ER’. Such a crutch can be forgiven for the bravado on display.
Sergei immediately comes to the attention of the school gang, the titular tribe. Made up of the oldest, they rule the establishment - in the sense that no challenge is made against them. Relief might have been offered at their graduation, except they appear to be cultivating successors. Made up of about half a dozen boys and two girls, the tribe is interested in criminality beyond education’s walls – mugging and prostitution. Pimping out the two young women to drivers at a truck stop, they are also the concubines of the Chief of the group. Something disturbingly feudal emanates from the film, and also mercilessly capitalistic.
Proving mettle, via competency with martial arts, in an initiation (reminding of the hammer sequence in OLDBOY), Sergei is officially welcomed into the arms of the tribe. Demonstrating assuredness has him ascend through the ranks, as one of their number is run over by a reversing lorry. Now directly in charge of pimping, Sergei falls for one of his charges, Anna (Yana Novikova). In an unblinking, intimate physical encounter, she in turn begins to reciprocate his feelings. Behind the Chief’s back, and Anna a valuable commodity, apprehension/hope for such a clandestine romance’s fate hangs in the balance.
Having an apocalyptic otherworldly vibe, THE TRIBE does not shy from portraying the harsh, almost stomach-churning. Moments of tenderness are heavily outweighed by the varying barrage of corruption and callousness.
The climax is a jaw-dropping humdinger.
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