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e film is shot in sign language. There are neither subtitles nor dubbing, or comments. It is on this panel at once intriguing and disturbing that opens THE TRIBE, the first of Ukrainian Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. A true tidal wave at the semaine de la Critique at the last Cannes film Festival, however, it is a film that has managed to divide : difficult to disentangle the objective from the subjective, the true from the false in the amount of conflicting opinions that flower on THE TRIBE. And it is little to say that such uncertainty about the quality of a film little discouraging, especially when said movie is a small production of eastern Europe in more than two hours, shot with amateur actors in a language incomprehensible to the major part of the population.
But does this make THE TRIBE a silent film ? Not at all, because if the sign language is a language of deaf-mutes, it is not silent. It is quite the opposite : by their gestures, their verbs aborted and their heavy breath, the protagonists speak. Their way, of course, but they speak not just to understand the dialogs, because the emotion, the sensations and the scene convey beautifully the content of their speech. And this is where the tour de force of the film : everything is built in such a way that you never get bored, the staging masterfully Slaboshpytskiy is such that each sign sounds like a word, each expression gives it its meaning. Love and hate do not need to be translated we said the trailer, rarely a promotion will have been just on the aims of a filmmaker.
Slaboshpytskiy gives the film an achievement to be daunting : almost every scene is a sequence-shot, a game of framing, but especially the field – since the language of signs, ruled out the possibility of the out-of-field – there’s genius in THE TRIBE, the feeling of being immersed in this environment, exotic, confusing, unknown, and probably dangerous. The director captures the atmosphere of its places, its landscapes : their narrowness, their silence, their instability. Each plan is synonymous with the ideas of staging is wildly inventive – from simple details up to the first striking aspects of the genius of the first magnitude.
THE TRIBE is a film that is imperturbable, do away ever of its guideline, simple but effective and probably unprecedented. Stunning is probably the word that defined the better. And yet it is also deeply pessimistic – its conclusion is, in this respect, a moment of unheard-of violence is devastating and unforgettable. It is this same hard-line position that makes the work the opposite of the movie consensus : in its kind, THE TRIBE symbolizes absolute perfection, his approach is brought to such a level that it is difficult to imagine how one could go so far, as well. But this same approach is so insanely disruptive that it leaves no marble – love it or hate it, to make it short.
”It is this hard-line position that makes the work the opposite of the film, consensual”
Trashy, voyeuristic, subversive, while being a skill of great. THE TRIBE imposes on as one of the film’s most wildly innovative of the year, blurring the boundaries between cinema and the pure sensory experience. More than a revelation, a nice big slap, which by its ability to both divide within the audience justifies it instantly its status as a film marginal that will haunt him for a long time to those who have been able to stand up to the immortal last shot.
• Achievement : Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
• Screenplay : Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
• Main actors : Grigoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy, Alexander Dsiadevich
• Country of origin : Ukraine
• Released : October 1, 2014
• Duration : 2h12mn
• Distributor : UFO Distribution
• Synopsis : Sergey, deaf and dumb, enters a boarding school specialized and must undergo the rites of the band that spawned his order, trafficking and prostitution in the school. He manages to climb the ladder but falls in love with the young Anna, a member of this tribe, who sells her body to survive and leave Ukraine. Sergey will have to break the laws of this hierarchy without mercy.