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The Painter and the Thief
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Wikipedia article
'The Painter and the Thief' is a 2020 Norwegian documentary film directed by .
Synopsis
The film follows Barbora Kysilkova, an artist, forming a friendship with Karl-Bertil Nordland, a man who stole her artwork.
Cast
* Barbora Kysilkova
* Karl-Bertil Nordland
* ystein Stene
Release
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2020, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling.
Shortly after, Neon acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released in the United States on May 22, 2020.
Background
In an interview with 'The Guardian', director Benjamin Ree said that he aimed to explore the questions "What do humans do in order to be seen and appreciated and "What it takes of us to help and see others.
The idea for the film came when Ree read about the robbery in various Norwegian newspapers. He contacted the painter Barbora Kysilkova and began filming her first, and it took some time to convince Karl-Bertil Nordland to participate. Ree began filming both of them together the fourth time they met.
The film started as a short documentary with the filmmakers not knowing what would happen or where the story would go. Eventually, they decided to make it a feature after seeing Nordland's first reaction to his portrait. They filmed from 2016 to 2019.
The archival footage in the film is mainly filmed by a friend of Kysilkova, who already began filming her back in 2014. She took photographs and filmed the making of the two paintings that later would be stolen. She was also at the exhibition and participated in the trial. The courtroom recordings are the actual recording of the first meeting of Nordland and Kysilkova, where the latter brought with her an audio recorder to get the trial translated afterwards. She approached Nordland during a break. The film also uses the actual CCTV footage of the robbery, which was the main evidence in the trial.
Kysilkova spoke English in the film as she didn't understand Norwegian.
Ree chose to present the film in an unconventional structure as We wanted to portray Karl-Bertil as a complex, charismatic, intelligent guy. The only way to do that was to see the world from his perspective."
Critical reception
'The Painter and the Thief' received positive reviews from film critics, mainly for its direction, story, structure and emotional weight. It holds a 'fresh' approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on critic reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "'The Painter and the Thief' uses the unlikely bond between a criminal and his victim as the canvas for a compelling portrait of compassion and forgiveness." On Metacritic, the film is currently assigned a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 33 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Cath Clarke from 'The Guardian' awarded the film 4 stars out of 5, describing it as "astonishing, emotionally electric" and writing, "What an engrossing film and the gender reversal of a male muse inspiring a female painter has got to be one small step for art-world equality," while Adrian Horton called the film a "remarkable documentary" that "plays more like a twisting narrative film than real-life portrait."
In his review, Nick Schager from 'The Daily Beast' describes the story as "a true-crime tale reconfigured into a unique relationship saga, replete with twists, turns, heartbreak, failure and redemption thats as surprising as it is well-earned." He also praised the film's ending as "unbelievably unexpected, poignant, and altogether perfect."
Peter Debruge wrote for 'Variety' magazine that its direction and editing "dont give us all the information we might need to form a clear understanding of their subjects actions, yet their approach is not only more artistic but somehow more representative of real life", also noting its "time-bending nonlinear structure and various sleight-of-hand techniques to deliver information when its most effective."
Paul Byrnes wrote in his review for 'The Sydney Morning Herald', "The level of trust required to allow a filmmaker to document their lives is in itself moving, but it mirrors the relationship they have with each other," adding that "The slow revelation of [Barbora's] pain makes clear just how artful Rees work on structure has been in this achingly beautiful true story."
Brian Tallerico from 'RogerEbert.com' awarded 'The Painter and the Thief' 3 stars out of 4, writing that it "illuminates a great deal about the human condition" and that some sequences "are going to stick with me for a long time." He added, "Ree has a very cinematic language, shooting long shots down hallways, trailing his subjects like a French New Wave director would follow his fictional creations down a sidewalk." However, he felt that the film "does kind of fizzle out in the third act ... I was hoping for something to take the film to the next level in the final section, but the opposite almost happens. A question that feels like it should have been asked long before is saved for the 'climax', and I was reminded of the construction of the film in a negative way."
Writing for the magazine 'Little White Lies', Leila Latif commended the director for tackling the film's themes "with gentle curiosity, never pushing the subjects to probe this dynamic too forcefully, but rather allowing it to slowly unveil itself."
David Ehrlich from IndieWire gave the film the grade B, calling it a "a tender psychosexual tale of art and ownership" and a "nuanced and beguiling new documentary about the various things we all take from each other." He also wrote, "Ree doesnt pat himself on the back for his efforts to humanize both of his title characters. Instead, 'The Painter and the Thief' recognizes how art ostensibly, empathetic art most of all has a nasty habit of flattening its subject in order to fulfill its audience, and the film does what it can to complicate the privileged gaze of looking at someone like they cant look at you back."
Awards
The film won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling in the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, the Golden Firebird Award at Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Audience Award at London Film Festival.
Best-of lists
'The Painter and the Thief' was ranked as the best documentary film of 2020 by the 'BBC', 'The Washington Post', and 'The Boston Globe'.
References
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