Review: World War II is hell (again) in 'The Painted Bird'

Around the third hour or so of "The Painted Bird," a grueling, pristinely photographed compendium of wartime horrors, the camera unexpectedly alights on a small, precious act of human decency. A soldier, seated in a tree overlooking a nearby village, quietly passes a piece of bread to his companion, a young boy whose nightmarish journey we have been following. This gentle idyll doesn't last long - the soldier has a rifle and, soon, an unfortunate target in his sights - but it still has the merciful feel of a respite, a reminder of kinder impulses that existed long ago, before the world descended into unspeakable barbarism.

That barbarism is the subject of this long, comprehensive soul-lashing of a film from the Czech writer-director Vaclav Marhoul, who adapted