The Tribe [Plemya] **** (2014, Grigoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy) – Movie Review

Grigoriy Fesenko stars as Sergey, a deaf teenager who enters a hellish specialised boarding school where, to survive, he becomes part of a wild gang unleashing violence on each other and pimping girls to truck drivers.

The characters communicate in Ukrainian sign language and you fall in with the dialogue-free idea after a little bit, taking on the mood of the ambient sounds, and immersing into its world. It all becomes haunting and mesmeric, a hallucinatory aura that’s broken up by several shocking sequences – particularly an endless, appallingly detailed backstreet abortion, a full-on sex scene and a violent mass retribution involving a novel way of killing.

Though not for the faint-hearted, or those in seek of a date movie, this is brilliant challenging cinema. Writer-director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky knows exactly what he’s doing, does it aggressively and commands the screen authoritatively. His vision is bleak and he has found a unique way of expressing it.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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