The Polish visual artist Lech Majewski treats Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “The Way to Calvary’’ like a still frame from an unmade movie. Bruegel’s 1564 painting was more or less remaking Raphael’s “Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary’’ from the early part of the 16th century; Bruegel transplanted Christ’s Passion to Low Country Flanders and expanded the painting’s scope to include several hundred characters - peasants, merchants, soldiers, all heading to Golgotha for the crucifixion.
Majewski and his collaborator, the art historian Michael Francis Gibson, embellish and intertwine a few of these characters so that Bruegel’s panorama becomes theirs. Visually, the film is a collection of tableaux vivantes that encompasses everything from the flogging of Jesus and the two thieves crucified with him, and Mary (Charlotte Rampling) serenely waiting to hold her son, to the Counter Reformation anti-heretical punishments that were rampant under Philip II of Spain.
The effect of it all isn’t unlike Alexander Sokurov’s Steadicam-through-the-Hermitage adventure “Russian Ark,’’ in which the museum’s works come to life. But here the museum is an afterthought.
As Bruegel, Rutger Hauer perches himself above the grassy lowland, tools in hand, watching the passing villagers. He shows an art-collector friend (Michael York) a blueprint of what he plans to paint. Below, the camera tracks the men and women being outfitted in the costumes they’ll model for him. Once, Bruegel finds himself awestruck by the artistry and labor of a spider’s web. “I shall work like the spider I saw this morning,’’ he vows.
