This Ukrainian film is one of those very rare things in Cinema: a truly original movie that does a few things which have never or almost never been done before. These are that this film is set in a deaf school in Kiev and is entirely told using Ukrainian Sign Language without any sub titles or voice over whatsoever. Which, of course, means that for the vast majority of the film's audience will have no way of knowing what the actors are saying.
The film does feature sounds but no spoken dialogue, so for the hearing audience you hear the traffic going by and the footsteps and papers rustling while you are guessing what the actors are saying. Apparently, Ukrainian sign language uses about 20% of the signs used in most western sign language so even if you can sign you may still be in the dark as to what they are saying; although in mitigation it's not hard to guess a lot of the time.
The film concerns a teenage boy who is sent to a boarding school for deaf kids that looks like it is part prison/part asylum and it's a very grim place to be sent too. On arriving at the school, he gets mugged for all his cash and then forced to help in some of the schools more nefarious activities that include a couple of the teachers pimping out some of the girls at the local Lorry park where the boys knock on the lorry windows to show the girls to the drivers and then hold up a price sheet.
As the main boy we are following (who I started to think of as Pyotr as I hadn't a clue what anyone's names were, I had to make them up) gets deeper into the action, he manages to fall in love with one of the two main Ninotchkas which is a big mistake as while she may be implicitly involved in her own abuse she clearly feels no love and only hatred for her abusers while she tries to earn the money to escape to Italy.
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The more alienated Pyotr becomes and the more he learns to hate his teachers and school mates, the darker this film becomes and as one of the Ninotchkas goes to have a very harrowing back street abortion he seems to spiral out of control before the film comes to its rather shocking conclusion. I'll not spoil that conclusion, other than to say by then end of The Tribe I hadn't learnt to like any of the people in the film.
This is a really grim film that makes things like Hostel seem a bit upbeat by comparison. It also makes me feel happy not to live in a country where they lock up kids for the crime of being deaf. That I don't speak Ukrainian sign language really didn't matter as the passion and the skill of the all deaf cast made sure you understood what was going on. Almost all of the time at least.
This film is only recommended for viewers with strong stomachs who like to be challenged by a very darkly original work which is well worthy of the plaudits it received last year at the Cannes film festival. On coming out of the cinema we needed to spend an hour or so talking about what we'd just seen as it really does make you think.
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