User Reviews

A unique and improbable documentary and a very profound character study about two contrasting individuals. The relationship that Benjamin Ree captures — with many twists and turns — shows a peculiar but very human bond. Some scenes may feel staged, but I think this is essential to fully appreciate this film as an art piece.

This weekend, thanks to IDA (International Documentary Association), I was given the opportunity to watch Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree's documentary, "The Painter and the Thief." The film follows the 3 year journey of Czech artist living in Norway, Barbora Kysilkova, and her attempt to locate several of her paintings stolen from an art gallery. Barbora connects at the trial with caught ringleader, Karl-Bertil Nordland, a career criminal fighting a heroin addiction and a (possibly)feigned memory loss of the theft, and offers to paint his self-portrait, in hopes this may help her find out the whereabouts of the stolen paintings. What follows this initial meeting between the two is an unexpected friendship and empathetic bond over the next 3 years. Without giving anything away, the documentary's ending is rather extraordinary.

An intriguing story -- or, rather, an intriguing collection of stories -- that are all linked to one another but don't gel in a fully cohesive and coherent way. This documentary about an emerging artist whose two most prized paintings are impulsively stolen from an Oslo gallery by an intelligent but strung-out junkie explores the unlikely friendship that develops between them when she subsequently asks to do a portrait of him. What appears to start out as an act of forgiveness and compassion grows into a complex, almost co-dependent relationship in which the parties attempt to explore their unusual involvement with one another, as well as aspects of themselves that have never been addressed before. But, ultimately, viewers are left to ask, "All to what end?" It's as if audiences are being asked to take the documentation of their intimate interaction on faith, that there's something innately profound to it that's never fully explained but is nevertheless not to be doubted. In taking that approach, director Benjamin Ree asks much from his viewers without delivering the same in return, a problem compounded by a somewhat confounding narrative time line and the inclusion of too much incidental material that could have easily been snipped. I genuinely expect more out of the films of producer Morgan Neville ("20 Feet from ****," "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble," "Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal," "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"), an aspect clearly missing here. This is by no means an awful film -- just one that isn't as good as it could have been.