The hooligan thugs of “A Clockwork Orange” had their own new language, courtesy author Anthony Burgess. The delinquent gang members of “The Tribe” don’t call each other droogs, but they have a distinct kind of communication too.
But we can’t hear a word of it.
The dialogue in this Ukrainian film is entirely made of sign language, and it is not subtitled (not in Ukrainian, not in English). It’s essentially a silent film, its soundtrack made up of incidental noise and the occasional violent gasp.
The setting is a boarding school for the deaf outside Kiev, where newcomer Sergey (Grigoriy Fesenko) is welcomed with a mugging, a beating, and eventual enlistment in the teen gang that runs the place. (Grown-up authority is almost never seen.)
Some of the boys act as pimps for their female classmates, cruising through a nearby truckstop for customers. At some point, Sergey falls for one of the girls, Anya (Yana Novikova), and of course wants to rescue her.
Writer-director Miroslav Slaboshpytskiy has rightly wagered that the relative simplicity of the story and the forceful presence of the actors would make the action comprehensible. The old screenwriting wisdom about being able to follow a story with the sound turned off has rarely been more vividly demonstrated, and after a while you will almost certainly forget that you’re watching a movie in Ukrainian sign language. Partly this is because Slaboshpytskiy has emphasized the brutal violence and blunt sex, and partly because the actors are so expressive.
It’s an arresting stunt. I did find myself wondering whether “The Tribe” would be as intriguing if it didn’t have the silent-movie treatment.
The echoes of “Clockwork Orange” and “Lord of the Flies” are blatant (a scene of Sergey getting abused with near-drowning is a steal from the Kubrick film, but probably these students have watched that).
The film wallows in 21st-century misery in a familiar way; a sequence involving a painful medical procedure — which unfolds in a long, unbroken, excruciating shot — is a litmus test for how much of the horrors of the world an audience can endure. And by concentrating on the puppy love Sergey feels for Anya, Slaboshpytskiy narrows the focus of this otherwise fascinatingly unusual world.
Of course, movies aren’t just themes or plots. As a whole experience, “The Tribe” is definitely unusual — and I suspect will prove haunting in the memory.
“The Tribe” (3 stars)
A very unusual film-watching experience: This Ukrainian film about teen violence at a school for the deaf has no subtitles at all. Amazingly, it doesn’t take long to get used to understanding the story, even if the characters use sign language. The movie might not be ground-breaking in its familiar story, and it’s difficult to watch, but the approach is haunting.
Rating: Not rated; probably R for nudity, violence
Showing: Northwest Film Forum
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