Le Tableau volé

This film has an interesting setting, a large French auction house, and there is a wider range of characters than one might have expected. The actors were well-chosen, the cinematography was good and the stolen painting at the centre of the film is quite an important one in the world of twentieth century art. Egon Schiele is one of my favourite artists. I was intrigued by the story line, and throughout the film I was continually wondering what would happen next. However the scriptwriter seemed to have packed the film with a number of tantalising characters and story lines which added colour and movement but which in the end were not fully integrated into the main narrative.

Art-related movies fascinate me. Biographies of artists, the fate of famous paintings, spectacular heists of art objects or dramas from the world of artists or collectors have generated successful and good quality films. 'Le tabeau volé' (English distribution title is 'Auction'), the film by French director and screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer, adds to this collection (apt metaphor!) with a not very friendly display of the world of art auctions. Situated somewhere between docu-drama and comedy, the film is inspired by a real event that happened almost two decades ago - the finding in Mulhouse, France, of a very valuable painting by the Austrian painter Egon Schiele, lost at the beginning of World War II along with an entire collection of works of art belonging to a family of Austrian Jews who were refugees from Nazi persecution. Starting from this real event, Bonitzer imagined a gallery of characters with their problems and interests, not all related to art or the passion for beauty. The result is not all that it could have been, but the film is quite interesting and not only for art lovers.

The story of the discovery, recovery and sale of the famous painting is composed of several narrative planes, and this cannot be accidental, since Pascal Bonitzer has a filmography that includes six times more screenplays he wrote than films that he directed. The central character is André Masson, a very competent and rather unsympathetic art expert who works for a large auction house. His assistant is Aurore, a young intern who has a complicated family history that exposed her to the corrupt world of auctions. Bertina, André's ex-wife, is the expert with whom he will authenticate the painting and convince those who had kept it without being aware of its value to put it up for sale, for the benefit of the descendants of the family that was deprived of its wealth during the Holocaust. All of these and a few other secondary characters will be involved in a rather interesting plot, but which does not seem to have been the focus of the screenwriter and director Bonitzer.

The revelations behind the scenes of the world of art auctions will captivate many viewers. The actors are very well chosen. Alex Lutz is an actor that I do not remember seeing in important roles. His André Masson is ambiguous and I could not decide whether to hate him or to love him and I liked that. Watching Léa Drucker again is always a pleasure. I also really liked the young Louise Chevillotte, who fit very well into the role of the vulnerable intern, in a relationship of admiration and antipathy with her boss, revealing at the right time a life experience that proves to be critical. There are a few other interesting heroes, but I think that precisely this diversity of characters and themes, sketched but not deepened, is the main problem of the film. The multiplication of narrative planes and life stories, which in many other cases represent a quality, creates in 'Le tabeau volé' a feeling of lack of focus. Some characters disappear just when we had begun to be interested in their fate. The ending also seemed a little forced and conventional to me. All of this makes the difference between the interesting and enjoyable film that 'Le tabeau volé' is and the very good film that it could have been.

AUCTION is an entertaining movie set in the contemporary world of art collectors and art dealers. An ambitious and zealous agent for a major art auction house hears that someone wants to sell a painting by Egon Schiele. He's very skeptical and is virtually certain that the painting is a fake because it's common knowledge that such "degenerate art" (which included virtually everything that wasn't realistic) was all burned by the Nazis in a huge bonfire on Hitler's orders. But to his shock, it's authentic. Then there's the question of who is the rightful owner of the painting, the man who's selling it (it's been on his wall for decades. He is a young blue-collar worker who had no idea it was valuable), or the now-deceased prewar owner whose heirs are now rich and powerful Americans. Some of the characters only speak German and some speak only French. And of course, everyone wants to know how much people would be willing to pay for it. And virtually everyone in the cast has a complicated sexual and emotional life. The plot is complex with multiple story lines and a lot of characters who each have their own agenda. I was afraid at first that I would not be able to follow the plot, but I needn't have worried. I'm glad I saw it. My favorite characters were the young blue-collar worker (Arcadi Radeff), the female intern (Louise Chevillotte) who works for the agent, and the agent's ex-wife (Lea Drucker), who is nonetheless still supportive of her former husband (Alex Lutz). All in all, I thought it was delightful and full of that famous gallic charm.

I love how it shows the world of art and auction. It's fascinating how they turn the tables and make the audience focus on what there is to see. You really can't fathom the horror that's about to come because you'll believe and dive into the story that is written and showed. I am disgusted at the relationship between the male lead and female lead because of the obvious age difference, though it will make sense at the near end of the story. I can say that they have created this movie really well that I can call the character Robert a very genius character for being the mastermind. I have to rate it 7 because of the insane age gap and there's really something that had happened. Otherwise, the movie is a masterpiece and no one can ever predict how things will turn out.