Automatische concepten

English summary

Connoisseurs regard The Tribe as the most stunning and innovative film of 2014! Last year this beautiful, gritty love story won 14 film awards, including three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival.
In the enchanting opening scene we see the deaf Sergej arrive at his new school. The camera stays outside, while on the other side of the glass doors a strange, almost carnivalesque ritual takes place. For now, the viewer is the outsider and Sergej seems entirely at home in the institute for the deaf. He fights his way to the top in an amoral world of violence, crime and prostitution. Until he falls in love with one of the hookers, and love ushers morality into his life. This has huge consequences, for all those involved.
Despite the lack of subtitles, the story is easy to follow. As a viewer, your attention is drawn to the actors’ mime and body language, and that creates an extraordinary viewing experience. But The Tribe is certainly a film with sound. Take, for example, the nocturnal idling of dozens of truck engines in a car park where the hookers ply their trade. The sound adds to the impact of the long, brilliantly executed tracking shot without close-ups. This results in a scene as powerful and alienating as the one in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, when Bess McNeill travels to her demise on the ghost ship.
It is almost unbelievable that The Tribe is a debut film, and that the actors are all amateurs. A film not to be missed.