The Tribe
Directed by: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Written by: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Starring: Grigoriy Fresenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy, Alexander Dsiadevich, Yaroslav Biletskiy, Ivan Tishko, Alexander Osadchiy, Alexander Sidelnikov, Alexander Panivan
Crime/Drama - 132 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 July 2015
Written by: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Starring: Grigoriy Fresenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy, Alexander Dsiadevich, Yaroslav Biletskiy, Ivan Tishko, Alexander Osadchiy, Alexander Sidelnikov, Alexander Panivan
Crime/Drama - 132 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 July 2015
To begin with a film platitude you have read a million times before, you’ve never seen anything like this. I’m serious, twenty bucks says you have never seen a movie entirely in Ukrainian sign language with no subtitles. Pay up. Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s The Tribe is a creative masterpiece; I was nailed to my seat from start to finish. It’s hyper-violent, realistically sexual, and exhilarating at the same time where you understand zero of what the kids say to each other, but you know exactly what is going on. You will at first be scared at the thought of sitting through a movie you know you will not understand, where you must infer absolutely everything. Step up! Don’t be afraid! If you skip The Tribe because you heard someone mock that arty Ukrainian sign language film, shame on you, you’re only depriving yourself for skipping one of the very few pieces of originality showing up in contemporary cinema.
The audience does not require sentimental speeches or subtitles to see that the new boy in school is doing his best to fit in, hang with the crew, become accepted by the ruling clique, and then screw it all up by falling in love with the wrong girl. This is nowhere near the first film to tackle that subject and it won’t be the last; yet, it will probably be the first and last to do it with no vocal chords and indecipherable hand movements. Word on the street is don’t even try to follow along if you are fluent in American Sign Language; this lingua franca is vastly different as spoken English is to Ukrainian.
The audience does not require sentimental speeches or subtitles to see that the new boy in school is doing his best to fit in, hang with the crew, become accepted by the ruling clique, and then screw it all up by falling in love with the wrong girl. This is nowhere near the first film to tackle that subject and it won’t be the last; yet, it will probably be the first and last to do it with no vocal chords and indecipherable hand movements. Word on the street is don’t even try to follow along if you are fluent in American Sign Language; this lingua franca is vastly different as spoken English is to Ukrainian.
Slaboshpitsky cast only deaf, non-professional actors. Nobody you see in the film poses as deaf and nobody has a previous film credit. These gutsy casting choices are why The Tribe achieves such intense realism. These boarding school kids are as believable as any Meryl Streep or Marlon Brando disciples ever could hope to be in their situation. Even the director cannot understand sign language; he hired on set interpreters to ensure the kids stuck to the script. What could have easily fell into catastrophe and a lesson in what not to do have instead paid enormous dividends in The Tribe’s tone, atmosphere, and gut-wrenching narrative.
Another key piece of the pie is the cinematography by Valentyn Vasyanovych. The Tribe is well over two hours long but it only has a few dozen shots. Vasyanovych was smart enough to set the camera up at a perfect angle and leave it alone. During an uber-realistic back room abortion performed by a midwife-level specialist at best, the camera stares in from the doorway as the poor girl undergoes a stomach-churning trauma in a single take. The fumbling and bumping sexual encounters are exactly what inexperienced and uncaring adolescents would do to one another. In one early scene, our central pair of teens goes at it on a filthy boiler room floor while the non-judging camera remains at standing eye level observing the two flip and flop across the greasy floor.
As for the school, this is not your average Hogwarts. We only see the teaching staff at a beginning opening session and after that, it’s as if they don’t even exist. The school’s mafia runs the dorm with merits and punishments decided upon by the ruling elite. Their moneymaking illegal activities ranging from assault, burglary, and prostitution are carried out with no thought whatsoever of getting caught by the faculty. In fact, certain segments on the staff collude with the students to score some extra cash on the side. We understand why the new kid needs to break into the club; there really is no alternative.
Miroslav Slaboshpitsky accomplishes a feat bordering on revolutionary with The Tribe. Its closest cousins are early silent films and even those included interludes for narrative cards to read. The Tribe would never stoop so low. We believe the carnage we witness on the screen is real and even the brief, lonely sensual respites. There is nowhere for The Tribe to go after this; any attempt at a sequel or a near peer would just be tracing the original lines. Here’s hoping studios and filmmakers leave what is true creativity alone for future audiences to appreciate. The sheer audacity of making an un-subtitled Ukrainian sign language film is too mind-blowing to be repeated very often.
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