THE STOLEN PAINTING Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Pascal Bonitzer
Stars: Alex Lutz, Lea Drucker, Louise Chevillotte, Arcadi Radeff, Nora Hamzaoui, Lawrence Cote, Alain Chamfort, Olivier Rabourdin, Doug Rand.
During WWII the Nazis looted paintings and valuable art works from Jewish families. There have been several films that have explored the efforts to recover much of the looted art, including the 2014 drama The Monuments Men with George Clooney and Matt Damon as Allied soldiers trying to save culturally significant art works from the Nazis; the 2015 drama Woman In Gold with Ryan Reynolds and Helen Mirren, which told the true story of a woman trying to legally reclaim the iconic Gustav Klimt painting stolen from her family by the Nazis. And there was also The Train, the 1964 action film from John Frankenheimer about a group of soldiers trying to take down a Nazi train full of stolen art works.
This subtle and leisurely paced French drama, from director Pascal Bonitzer (Right Here Right Now, etc) is based on the true story about the discovery of a lost Egon Schiele painting, stolen by the Nazis during the war and long thought lost. The painting turned up in the home of Martin Keller (Arcadi Radeff), a blue-collar factory worker who lived in rural France with his widowed mother.
Andre Masson (Alex Lutz, from Strangers By Night, etc) is a specialist in modern art who works for a Paris based auction house. When he learns of the existence of the painting, he takes his ex-wife Bettine (Lea Drucker, from Last Summer, etc) along with him to check it out. They learn that the painting belonged to a Jewish family before the war, which raises a number of troubling ethical questions about how much they can auction it for and who should get any money from the sale. Andre sees this as his opportunity to make his mark in the cutthroat world of auction houses and finance. He only seems to care about how much money he can make from the sale of the painting.
But there are further complications along the way, not the least of which is a shady lawyer representing the American Jewish family of the original owner who tries to manipulate the asking price of the painting.
Bonitzer is a former film critic with the influential Cahiers du Cinema, but his screenplay here, co-written with Iliana Lolkic (Can’t Say No, etc) is rather dull. The Stolen Painting gives some insights into the wheeling and dealing and politics of the art world and auction houses. But Bonitzer’s direction is laboured and the pedestrian pacing was a real turn off. Bonitzer spends an inordinate amount of time exploring Masson’s messy personal life with his eccentric new assistant Aurore (Louise Chevillotte), which was not particularly interesting.
I wasn’t particularly engaged by what was on the screen.
★★☆
