Plot
A deaf teenager struggles to fit into the boarding school system.
Release Year: 2014
Rating: 7.4/10 (2,351 voted)
Critic's Score: 86/100
Director: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Stars: Grigoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy
Storyline
A deaf teenager enters a specialized boarding school where, to survive, he becomes part of a wild organization - the tribe. His love for one of the concubines will unwillingly lead him to break all the unwritten rules within the Tribe's hierarchy.
Cast: Grigoriy Fesenko -
Yana Novikova -
Rosa Babiy -
Alexander Dsiadevich -
Yaroslav Biletskiy -
Ivan Tishko -
Alexander Osadchiy -
Alexander Sidelnikov -
Alexander Panivan -
Trivia:
All the actors are deaf and the film makes no use of any vocal language nor even subtitles, only sign language throughout. This may quite well be a first for a feature film of fiction. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 10/10
At the time of writing (October 2014) this is on release in France but
not the UK or the US so I'll write this for the benefit of audiences
elsewhere in the world who might be wondering whether to go and see it
or not. When not extorting money from other students at a boarding
school for the deaf in the Ukraine, the 'tribe' of thugs in the title
spend their time robbing train passengers, people in the street or,
with the help of their teachers, pimp each other at a truck stop. New
kid Sergey arrives and falls for one of the young hookers...which is
about all the synopsis you need. There's no dialogue, or subtitles, all
the communication between the characters is through sign language.
Along with a total absence of incidental music this has the paradoxical
effect of heightening the sound...the sounds of footsteps, lorry
engines revving for example becoming sinisterly effective. It's not
difficult to follow the narrative at all, so don't be put off. The
bleak surroundings of the institution combine with a dreary landscape
of crumbling apartment blocks, supermarkets at night time in a bitter,
dirty grey winter, to heighten the feeling of an amoral universe, a dog
eat dog world where everyone is out only for themselves. There's no
compassion, the one intimate relationship which develops seems to be
motivated by lust, carnality and characterised by opportunism on either
part. There doesn't appear to be any real tenderness there. Is the
closed institution an allegory for the Ukraine, or human societies as a
whole? The Tribe is a unique piece of cinema and inspired me to write,
I've seen nothing in the last few years quite so extraordinary, but be
warned it most definitely is not for the faint hearted. The violence is
sickening, stomach churning, and made all the more shocking by the use
of sound and absence of music since even if averting your gaze you
remain all too aware of what's happening on screen, with no music to
distance or make things ironic. The Tribe forces you to gaze,
unblinking, into the abyss of total human depravity.
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