Václav Marhoul’s film
uses sound to amplify
the horrors not seen
onscreen.
BY MM EDITORS56 MOVIEMAKER.COM
THE VIOLENT SOUNDS
OF THE PAINTED BIRD
HE PAINTED BIRD follows a boy from an unnamed
country through an odyssey of World War II cruelty.
It uses an Interslavic dialect not tied to any one
place, so as not to indict any specific people for the
awful behavior of the boy’s abusers. It is beautifully
made but distressing to watch, and even more distressing to hear:
Director Václav Marhoul and sound supervisor Pavel Rejholec use
immersive, detailed sound to detail horrors worse than the ones
they show on screen. In the following conversation, they spoke
about how sound helped them tell their story.T
SPRING 2020