Le Portrait
“The Painting” is about a woodsman who asks the local sketch artist to sketch a picture of his child so the child can live on forever because he’s dead. It’s filled with a slow-burning mystery that mixes alluring visuals to help ease our way into a rather interesting story.
Like I said, it’s a slow-burning movie. Not much action happens and the only conflict we are able to see are between the two main characters. Each one is rather quiet and as the story continues we slowly figure out why they keep to themselves. It’s true that all the events in this film could have been condensed down to a short film of some sort, but what I find the most interesting (and why I’m glad they didn’t do just that) is it forces us to focus on the characters and by the end of the film get a better sense of who they are exactly. That being said, there are moments where this film can get rather exciting. Usually those moments consist of some sort of surrealism that end up being symbolic towards the end. Those moments are what pushed the film forward and kept me invested because I wanted to get to the bottom of what they meant and how they relate to the main characters.
The way this is shot helped emphasize those moments. Every single frame in this film is a piece of art in some way or another. The compositions of the characters, the amount of depth allowed, and the color palette made this entire film feel like a surrealistic canvas. Every sequence that happens in this film is like a stroke on the overall piece. Not to mention there are a lot of screen capture worthy moments of nature shots that look absolutely beautiful. That in turn adds to the surrealistic vibe this piece offers us.
Which leads me to my next element of the film that I appreciated: the directing. There was a statement that the director wanted to convey and for the most part it’s pretty cohesive (I say for the most part just because surrealism can be extremely subjective). The notion that art lives on forever is actually quite interesting. There’s a part near the end where the two men talk amongst themselves the difference between a painting and a sketch and the dialogue they exchange is something I believe the director fully believes in, because it shows through the passion behind the idea of the film.
Overall I really enjoyed this. Even though it’s slow at parts and I wanted to see more action, I realize that’s not what the filmmakers were going for and they wanted us to take our time (like art itself) and watch this not knowing what was going to happen next. When their motivations are revealed the whole thing comes together like a full circle and was satisfying. The scenes we witness with the artist sketching away slowly became meditative and focused; much like the process itself. Those moments are what we are supposed to appreciate. I admire the filmmakers for trying to cohesively convey that notion.
