L'hypothèse du tableau volé

Having read during many years about how great this film was, how it established Ruiz among the french critics (specially the snobbish Cahiers crowd), when I finally watched it about a year ago, I found it pretty disappointing (but then, I guess my expectations were sky-high). Shot in saturated black and white, this deliberately cerebral film (made for TV, and mercifully, only an hour long) is told in the form of a conversation between an art connoisseur and an off-screen narrator as they ponder through a series of paintings (which are shown in the style of tableaux vivants) and try to find if they hold some clues about a hidden political crime. (The awful Kate Beckinsale film Uncovered has a similar argument). Borgesian is a word I read a lot in reviews about this movie, but I would say almost any Borges story is more interesting than this film.

L'Hypothèse du tableau volé/The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1979) begins in the courtyard of an old, three-story Parisian apartment building. Inside, we meet The Collector, an elderly man who has apparently devoted his life to the study of the six known existing paints of an obscure Impressionist-era painter, Tonnerre. A narrator recites various epigrams about art and painting, and then engages in a dialogue with The Collector, who describes the paintings to us, shows them to us, tells us a little bit about the painter and the scandal that brought him down, and then tells us he's going to show us something....

As he walks through a doorway, we enter another world, or worlds, or perhaps to stretch to the limits, other possible worlds. The Collector shows us through his apparently limitless house, including a large yard full of trees with a hill; within these confines are the 6 paintings come to life, or half-way to life as he walks us through various tableaux and describes to us the possible meanings of each painting, of the work as a whole, of a whole secret history behind the paintings, the scandal, the people in the paintings, the novel that may have inspired the paintings. And so on, and so on. Every room, every description, leads us deeper into a labyrinth, and all the while The Collector and The Narrator engage in their separate monologues, very occasionally verging into dialogue, but mostly staying separate and different.

I watched this a second time, so bizarre and powerful and indescribable it was, and so challenging to think or write about. If I have a guess as to what it all adds up to, it would be a sly satire of the whole nature of artistic interpretation. An indicator might be found in two of the most amusing and inexplicable scenes are those in which The Collector poses some sexless plastic figurines -- in the second of them, he also looks at photos taken of the figurines that mirror the poses in the paintings -- then he strides through his collection, which is now partially composed of life-size versions of the figures. If we think too much about it and don't just enjoy it, it all becomes just faceless plastic....

Whether I've come to any definite conclusions about "L'Hypothèse du tableau volé", or not, I can say definitely that outside of the early (and contemporaneous) works of Peter Greenaway like "A Walk Through H", I've rarely been so enthralled by something so deep, so serious, so dense....and at heart, so mischievous and fun.

With enchanting aestheticism and the theological investigation of art, of its creation and speculation, of its interrelationships with cinema, in particularly the recreation of a printing in a cinematic scope. Its a stylistic and fascinating, moderately surreal work by the master Raul Ruiz, but only to an extent, afterwards, the movie creates a incomprehensible concept by both the dialogue and the exploration of the idé itself.

There's a blanket term in film criticism, reflexivity. Its an odd word. It denotes something where outside and inside are merged or mixed, where viewer and viewed overlap. And yet the word itself is not reflexive, it stands aloof. While the root comes from reflection, and the direct form would be reflective, the whole thing smacks of an invented concept that sterilizes the user from the phenomenon it denotes.

Its a word that drives me a bit crazy, in part because it is applied to several different types of things that have little to do with one another. The concept as used by the most prominent writers just appears as if it were built into the universe as some by-product of intelligent design, a sort of natural effect like dreaming that writers can reference.

I've tried to repair that by redefining a larger class of effects as "folding," teasing out the various types, and attempting to explain why they were invented and to serve what narrative utility. Without this, you get philosophical notions that are refined away from life; and then artists that quote those refined sugars in art as if they really indicated life.

Like we have here.

I've decided to get into Ruiz in a serious way. I saw his corner of Swann's Way and was impressed. Reader emails have indicated that he shares space with Greenaway, who I admire. So I went with this because it is supposed to be his most abstract and "pure." It is photographed by perhaps the best folded cinematographer who has ever lived.

I admit, it is clever, in a "Saragossa Manuscript" sort of way. We have several levels: us; our disembodied narrator; our on-screen narrator; a collection of actors that in a simple movie would be giving us a story and here do tableaux instead; our painter that is a narrator in seven paintings; and under that a score of narrators-in-life: families, religions and societies in knots.

The idea, the folding, is that these layers merge and shift one into another.

With a little work, you can get the point, and it is a worthwhile one.

But you can do this, all of it, with even more bizarrenesses without draining the blood and breath out of the thing. It is possible to fold all that into life and present us edges of that life, stuff that sweeps us in and gives us the stuff of structured dreams. This is an essay with some artistic vocabulary; it isn't art.

Damn the French for messing us up so. I'm sure Ruiz eventually found his way to judge from what I saw of his Proust. But this. Its worth watching as an exercise, but if you are looking for bits of cinematic bone and flesh from which to construct your being, look elsewhere. This is a cadaver.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The exact nature of art films and experimental films - the amount of narrative versus sheer esoteric exploration; how readily discoverable the underlying themes and ideas are versus how abstruse or downright inscrutable they might be - is as variable from one to the next as the superficial material and visuals with which they play. What we'll get from one to the next is impossible to say, and to initially sit and watch raises countless questions. If we're lucky then either by our own wit or perhaps by intent of the creator, any given picture will reveal itself to us in time, however quickly or slowly. 'L'hypothèse du tableau volé,' notably, is something a smidgen different from other fare that one might describe with such uselessly broad terms, for what we have is almost more of a whimsical thought experiment that plays out in the style of what would come to be known as a "mockumentary." And to be honest, it's altogether fascinating and weirdly fun.

Words like "ephemeral," "speculative," "lofty," and "cryptic" increasingly come to mind as the feature's rumination on its fictional subject matter becomes more complex and dovetails into oblique, backhanded reflection of and on real-life art (in any medium) and dissection and criticism thereof. It begins simply enough as an unseen narrator, or interviewer if you will, probes a private art collector about those pieces in his collection of a (made-up) painter. The collector, portrayed in admirable poise with an air of heavy burden of thought by Jean Rougeul, expounds upon what he believes to be connective threads between those works in his collection by "Fredéric Tonnerre," and how these might illuminate the content of a seventh painting that has been stolen and the substance of which is therefore unknown. These paintings are explored by having people dress and arrange themselves in a precise recreation of each scene. From there Raúl Ruiz's movie becomes more and more deliciously offbeat, however, as the collector's thoughts become more scattered and never truly get around to a concrete hypothesis as the name suggests. In time are woven in ponderings of the occult, of the nature of ceremonies that may or may not be strictly tied to the occult, of state control and regimentation, of a novel that inspired Tonnerre's works, and more. The collector stumbles more and more down a rabbit hole of discrete thoughts that may lead to others, until ultimately the very journey upon which he has struck comes into question. What a trip!

Much love to Ruiz and Pierre Klossowski, the latter co-writing the screenplay that is based in no small part upon his own literary oeuvre. From the outside looking in the very idea is curious, and as it begins one might be stumped. Yet the path we're taken on is unexpectedly absorbing, and no less so as it twists and turns and deviates. Call it an "art film" or "experimental film" if you will - both terms surely apply - one way or another I think this is low-key brilliant, demonstrative is wonderful intelligence and imagination to conjure such an oddity. And while the tone is decidedly subdued, with little on-screen movement and substantial dialogue characterizing the title, in every other capacity this is nonetheless superbly well made. Shot composition reigns supreme in 'L'hypothèse du tableau volé' in every regard, and Ruiz orchestrates every moment with incalculable dexterity and precision while nevertheless letting the whole come across quite softly, encouraging our own deliberation as we absorb all before us. The production design is frankly beautiful, and likewise the costume design, hair, and makeup; lighting is of extra importance here, and even it makes quite the impression. While Rougeul's co-stars are almost literally just set pieces here, one must commend them all the same for embracing the gentle artfulness of the proceedings; very notably, this marks the film debut of Jean Reno, who actually has a fair bit of prominence in a select sequence.

By the very nature of what this picture represents it certainly won't appeal to wide general audiences; only those who are receptive to all the wide possibilities of cinema, and the more quiet and far-flung corners at that, will be most appreciative of what it has to offer. I'll admit that I had mixed expectations as I sat to watch - but I'm oh so pleased at what it turned out to be, for it's surprisingly entertaining in its own unique fashion. This is the type of fare for those who want a movie to make them think, and any type of instant gratification is entirely out of the question; it requires patience. For anyone open to what it provides, however, 'L'hypothèse du tableau volé is a delight, and I'm happy to give it my hearty recommendation.