The details of Nordland’s arrest, trial, and sentence are awfully vague the exact parameters of his relationship with Kysilkova are difficult to determine. Sometimes, though, Ree’s almost passive patience – the film was shot over three long years – lets things drag, while leaving questions hanging in the air. (Particularly surprising for many audiences will be the peek inside Norwegian penitentiaries, where cells look more like hotel rooms, and prisoners go for long walks in the woods.)Ĭinematographer Kristoffer Kumar makes the most of Kysilkova’s haunted canvases, while Uno Helmersson’s music swells evocatively during emotional moments.
Some scenes are repeated from different perspectives sudden revelations are followed by flashbacks, filling in details. Then, we switch to Nordland’s, following him into prison, then outside as he tries to rebuild his life. First, we get Kysilkova’s point-of-view, watching her as she views the news of the burglary, standing behind her while she creates her huge, photorealist paintings. Ree uses dramatic devices to tell this tale, structuring the documentary a bit like a novel. We gradually understand the attraction between these two damaged souls – even if Kysilkova’s current boyfriend is increasingly aggravated by it. They have known pain, and they hate to see it in others.
#THE PAINTER AND THE THIEF FULL#
Nordland admits to a childhood full of “trauma” Kysilkova came to Norway fleeing a physically abusive lover. But Ree finds similarities between them, too. And slowly she becomes drawn into this outsider’s life, eventually sticking by him as he wends his way through the legal system, giving him food and hugs and endless emotional support.Īrt, like drama, often depends on contrasts – light and dark, soft and sharp – and Ree finds them in Kysilkova, the gently smiling artist and Nordland, the punk-rock criminal. And as he poses in her Norwegian studio, hour after hour, he starts to tell her about his life – a rural childhood, a bright academic career, and then drugs and despair and self-destruction.
#THE PAINTER AND THE THIEF TRIAL#
Fascinated by her unlikely, illegal, admirer – after all, a fan is a fan – she seeks Nordland out at his trial and asks if he’ll sit for her. He does remember he liked them a lot, though. The police declare the case closed.īut it’s still open to Kysilkova. He doesn’t know what happened to the paintings.
He was full of amphetamines and hadn’t slept for four days, he confesses. But where’s the art? When asked, the elaborately tattooed thief Karl-Bertil Nordland simply shrugs. Thanks to security cameras, police eventually solve the crime. Except her big break is ruined by a break-in, and the theft of two enormous canvases. It all begins when artist Barbora Kysilkova, a struggling Czech emigre, lands a gallery show in Oslo. Ree uses dramatic devices to tell this tale, structuring the documentary a bit like a novel Unfolding slowly, mostly in English, it’s an intriguing tale of lost souls and found redemption that could provide a unique change of pace for specialty cinemas and home screens. Premiering at Sundance this January and now on streaming platforms, this second feature from Benjamin Ree ( Magnus) focuses on an odd couple and the even odder situation that brought them together. The Painter and the Thief sees its subjects in multiple ones, going ever deeper and broader as it approaches its characters from different angles, discovering different sides while still searching for a single answer. 102 mins.Ī painted portrait tries to capture its subject in two dimensions.
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