Le tableau

Fantastic visuals, simply riveting with a perfectly executed structure. However, in my opinion it never reached it's full potential because it was held back. The film possessed a wonderful world without really exploring and explaining it in full detail, perhaps the director was not daring enough to go above and beyond in terms of the story line. Once the story was introduced, it struggled to maintain it's structural appeal. Though it contained a sensationally unique and stylistic appeal captivating the general audience. Despite the simple story it is a work bursting with imagination whether it be in art direction or its dazzling picture-hopping set piece.

It's a been a while since a film has filled me with wonder. The idea and visual effects created a world that makes you wish you could crawl through your TV. Every aspect of this movie soars: dialogue, character, story, visual, tone, etc. By comparison, the American animated movies seem too safe and predictable.

The visual team did an excellent job of creating a painted world in terms of how it looked and functioned. Some very clever thinking went into deciding what's possible within a canvas. The plot was straight forward, the painted characters fear they have been abandoned, but has enough substance for serious introspection.

The Painting is an excellent film for children and adults. It tackles some more serious themes than most American cartoons: racism, death, and philosophical questions about our purpose and creation. I'll be looking forward to seeing more films by the highly imaginative director Jean- Francois Laguionie.

The Painting (2011)

If you like animated films in general, and like inventive ones in particular, see this. I think it's good on many levels—the story, the style, the feeling. Even the sentimental ending.

But my taste for animation varies wildly. I loved "Monsters, Inc." and hated "Pocahontas." Anime leaves me cold. It isn't enough to dazzle me with animation tricks, nor to play with children's stories in inventive ways on screen.

So this story works with lots of familiar (too familiar) tropes—types of friends, heroes, problems that we know well. The animation (French) is different than both Pixar and Disney styles we know well, and also different than, say Wallace and Gromit (which wasn't American). But it isn't self-sustaining. I mean, it's a little constrained and polite, even when it is taking visual chances. It's all very "nice" all the time, and that goes with the friendly quality of the movie, too.

I sound like a curmudgeon. Not so (I think)! But I tried and tried to get absorbed and just got, well, bored. Sad to say. Judge for yourself. I will say that I think you need to give it a half an hour or so to get into some of the range of the film. But then, if it hasn't hooked you, it probably won't.

This is a very earnest but fun film which uses paintings to make a compelling, if also fairly vague, social statement. I got it because I was intrigued by the connections it would make between paintings and animation, and thought my kids would find this interesting. I later realized that the film's main premise, that paintings are "alive" like animation, and can even escape their canvas, was actually not new, but lifted directly from The King and the Mockingbird-a dependence which is not surprising given that The Painting was produced in France and Belgium. While that film used paintings to comment on the medium of animation, The Painting delves deeper into the painting itself, which it uses as an allegory for society. One premise is that paintings are a snapshot of an active world, which is moving behind the scenes; the other is that paintings are strictly hierarchical: some characters are fully colored ("all dones"); others are still in need of some coloring ("halfies"); and, at the bottom, are the mere sketches. The idea is that the painting is unfinished, but one could equally imagine that certain layers/characters have been abandoned and overpainted. The movie is, at its heart, a morality tale speaking out against the abuse of power by some of the "all dones," especially against the sketches, which could be applied to many situations; the idea that the halfies and sketches efforts to find the painter to complete themselves is misguided sends a much more ambiguous and mixed message. In any case, my kiddos enjoyed it and talked about it a lot afterwards.

This animated movie is a good surprise. With an innovative setting - a painting, it is filled with the intention to speak about art and creation. The animation by itself area celebration of the old handmade classics vs the new 3D-computerized trend. It reminds me a bit of "Le roi et l'oiseau" in some ways. Plus, of course, a few well-known painters through different figures. That common theme, art and creation, is kept intellegently the whole movie - thanks to the painting first and then the search of the painter, and, thus, the meaning of a piece and its future. Fortunately, the movie doesn't stop there and adds a layer for the adults in depicting a layer society - here based on the care you were getting from the painter - not too far from ours. Finally, there is adventure, that makes it a movie for everyone.

Not everything is perfect though and I do agree with some reviewers pointing some weak moments (I would also have loved some "Alice in Wonderland" crazyness) and weak characters that pales in front of their quest. Would have ended it before too.

But these weaknesses are not that big they will prevent you enjoying this movie.