'A Visit to the Louvre', is Strab and Houllet's companion piece to their earlier film 'Cezanne', which are both drawn from letters exchanged between Cezanne and his friend, art critic Joachim Gasquet. Both films follow a similar format with narration drawn from the text of Cezanne's letters played predominately still images. 'A visit to the Louvre' is the more tightly structured of the two which, aside from an opening panning shot of the building, is composed of images of the art Cezanne is critiquing.
As a film, this is difficult to categorise, Straub and Huillet always actively worked against convention, even in terms of running times (this is an awkward 45mins). This is not exactly a documentary, it simply presents one person's perspective on a relatively small selection of paintings. That said, the idea of 'recreating', in a very constrained style, the experience of walking through the Louvre with Cezanne, as Gasquet did, is a fascinating one. That won't translate into a fascinating film for audiences beyond serious art lovers (and even they many lose patience), but as always with Straub and Huillet, the ambition is admirable.
