DVD Review - Victori: The Truth Just Can't Be One Thing

This documentary by Michael Melamedoff is about the middle-age, Korean painter Victor Victori. It's reminiscent of last year's Oscar-nominee Cutie and the Boxer about the Japanese painter Ushio Shinohara. Melamedoff, however, focuses on Victori's, 25-year-old son, Edward Victori, a former investment banker who becomes an art consultant and seller for his dad's work. The documentary follows as Edward prepares for the 2012 New York Art Expo.

Victor Victori used to do portraits and has done some famous ones for Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. He's done thousands and thousands of custom-made, oil paintings. He's now mostly doing originals and his own style of art called multiplism. Multiplism is when Victori does multiple, connected faces in one piece to show a person or character's various emotions.

Melamedoff asks Victori again and again what his influences are, and Victori doesn't understand and finally says no one basically. Melamedoff sounds in disbelief, though Victori claims to be influenced by one one because he doesn't pay attention to other artists. He wants to do his own thing. All of it depends on the exact definition of influence, but one of Victori's paintings is a multiplism of Mona Lisa. Yet, it doesn't dawn on Victori that logically Leonardo da Vinci was an influence.

Once Melamedoff gets to the New York Art Expo, he talks to other artists and gets a general sense of the community and each artist's passion. He spends most of the time hanging out in the booth with Edward as he sets up the booth. Edward seems to be a very capable business man, but the overall business of the Expo feels a bit lost. More history and more context about the Expo would have been appreciated.

More history and context about Edward Victori and his brothers would have also been appreciated. There simply isn't enough of the Victoris interacting as a family. More that revealed their personalities or personal lives would have been a nice addition to this movie. It makes me curious to want to check on Edward Victori 10 or 15 years down the line.

Three Stars out of Five.
Not Rated but for general audiences.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 16 mins.
Available March 3 on DVD.

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