Movie Review - The Painter and the Thief

Five years ago, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore made Where to Invade Next (2015). In that documentary, Moore visited the country of Norway in northern Europe. He was there specifically to look at Norway's prison system, as an example for the United States to follow. Comparatively, the institutions in Norway are a more humane prison system than in America. He visited one of the most well-known prisons in that Nordic land, Halden Prison. Halden Prison is no vacation spot, but the prisoners there are treated with more dignity. Instead of being a punitive place, a place where people get punished, it's more of a place of rehabilitation and redemption or at least the first steps of which. While the Norway prisons aren't perfect and have their issues, it's seemingly a better system than in the U.S.

I mention this because this film by Benjamin Ree also takes us to Halden Prison. Ree's film stands as an example of not how government officials should behave or treat convicted criminals, as Moore's film does. It's an example of how perhaps the average person should behave or treat convicted persons of nonviolent crimes. Obviously, a person who committed a violent act like a rape or murder would and perhaps should have different circumstances. Ree's film specifically focuses on a criminal and his victim and how the victim treats the criminal. The victim here might not even identify as such, probably because the crime wasn't a violent one. Things might be different if the crime were more violent like a rape.

Barbora Kysilkova is a painter who lives in Oslo. She had two paintings in an art gallery there that were stolen in 2015. It made the news, which probably prompted Ree to follow Kysilkova, as she dealt with the repercussions. The two perpetrators were caught, not that long after the crime, thanks to surveillance cameras, and Barbora decided to go to court. Instead of being upset or dismissive of the one criminal in court, she decided to befriend him. She started by approaching him and simply asking him if he would pose for a new painting that she would make of him, which he agreed to do.

If anyone recalls the film P.S. Your Cat Is Dead (2003), which was based on a 1975 play, there is a similar conceit. The protagonist is an author whose book is stolen. The protagonist then catches the thief who stole the book, which is lost, so the protagonist decides to have the thief sit and be interviewed, so that the protagonist can write a new book based on the life of the thief. It's essentially the same thing here. Barbora has the thief here sit. Instead of an interview for a book, Barbora has the thief just model for her, so that she can create a new painting based on him.

Karl Bertil-Nordland is the thief in question. He ends up building a friendship with Barbora. Through that friendship, we learn about both of their lives. Both have issues and struggles. Barbora does have a better station, but she's not without her issues, including a former, abusive relationship, as well as financial struggles, but she has a more stable, support system. Karl does not. There are scenes of him with family members, presumably, but, due to drug addictions and other struggles like going in and out of rehab, he seems to be mostly ostracized. He does have a girlfriend, but we don't get much about her. Karl is a self-described junkie and that's an obvious first-impression that most people might make. However, this film is about pulling back the layers and showing that there's more than that first-impression.

Given the humane prison system in Norway, this doesn't seem to be a lesson that Norwegians need to learn, at least given how their criminal justice system is set up. Maybe this film isn't one for Norwegians. Barbora is technically an immigrant. She came to Oslo from Berlin, Germany. She was born in the Czech Republic. However, given that she's the one who initiates the relationship with Karl, it's again not a lesson that she needs to learn. I don't doubt that it's probably rare that a person would befriend the person who stole from them. Their friendship is unique in that case, but there's no way to know that, given the film's limited scope. Common sense would dictate that it's probably rare, unless the thief was someone whom you previously knew.

Øystein Stene is the boyfriend to Barbora. He's very supportive and loving. The only real drama in this whole thing comes from him. Late in the film, he points out that Barbora's relationship with Karl might be problematic. His objections stem from Barbora's aide to Karl that rises to the level of financial assistance. That aide might come at a detriment to her. Given the fact that Karl is put back into prison for another crime, even after he stole her painting, the question becomes what is she getting out of this relationship? It might simply be that she's getting a new muse for her art or just a unique friendship, and that might be enough.

Yet, outside of Øystein, we don't get any other relationships or friendships that Barbora might have. It might make sense that she doesn't have any other friends, being that she's so dedicated and obsessed with her art and making it. It would make sense if she didn't have any friends, given that she's an immigrant and it's unclear how long she's lived in Norway. However, that kind of probing to understand more of her life would have been appreciated.

What we mainly get about Barbora's life comes from the limited observations that Karl makes about her. This is done in a twist where the point-of-view and perspective of the film switches from Barbora to Karl. We start out seeing things from Barbora's side. Then, we switch and see things from Karl's side. The film does this several times. At first, it's a way of enlightening the audience, doing the thing of walking a mile in another person's shoes. After a while, it's just a way of revealing information to the audience in a somewhat surprising fashion. I suppose it's a way of creating suspense, but because this film isn't as comprehensive about Barbora and Karl's lives, it could come off as just a cheap gimmick.

If you want more about a person confronting the criminal who victimized them, there is a great episode in Season 4 of Netflix's Queer Eye called "Disabled but Not Really." In the episode, Karamo Brown takes a guy who was paralyzed to confront the man who shot him. In the final season of Netflix's Orange is the New Black, we see the character of Joe Caputo engaging in what's called restorative justice. We also see a similar thing in HBO's Oz where victims confront the people who victimized them. Those shows are more hard hitting because they deal with more violent crimes. Not to make light of it, but here a woman lost her paintings. This film doesn't ever really give us much insight on how she created those paintings, how long it took her, what inspired them and what they truly meant.

We see that the paintings meant something because she does something dangerous at the end to find and retrieve them, but there's no real explanation for what that meaning actually is.

Not Rated but for mature audiences.

Running Time: 1 hr. and 47 mins.

Available on Hulu.