The Painter and the Thief (2020)
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The Painter and the Thief Movie Review
The Painter and the Thief is a 2020 Norwegian documentary film directed by Benjamin Ree. It’s a fascinating, but overall disappointing endeavor.
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“What am I supposed to believe in,
if not communism?“
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It follows Barbora Kysilkova, an artist, forming a friendship with Karl Bertil-Nordland, a man who stole her artwork. The movie is at its best when exploring this weird relationship at the core of the story. The usual gender dynamic is entirely switched here with the woman being an artist and a man being her muse, and that alone was refreshing and quite interesting.
Their relationship is somewhat strange and even psychosexual in nature. There are scenes here where the two strike something very tender and intimate while still being confined to an artist-muse dynamic, and that was so intriguing to witness. And the whole idea that she would befriend a person who stole her artwork is psychologically complex and insightful.
Even though I liked their dynamic with her being the artistic mind and him being even a bit animalistic and timid in nature, the movie still felt overly manipulated in certain scenes, especially in the one where he lost it and started wailing like an animal. To me that scene was a bit too much. No way in hell was it not planned and it just felt emotionally manipulative to the core.
The filmmaking is very good, especially the editing and the cinematography is even pretty strong for a documentary. My main problem is the direction. It felt overly repetitive in pace at times and the director could have really made a more streamlined, shorter movie with a clearer purpose.
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What I mean by purpose is that the movie, though very thematically rich, doesn’t really have any message nor does it have anything more to say besides portraying its relationship to the smallest intimate details. The dialogue is strong, don’t get me wrong, and some conversations are quite powerful, but the film lost its steam near the second half and never recovered, resulting in a much better first half and a movie that was ultimately half-baked in ideas unfortunately. I admired it, but I didn’t adore it.
