“The Painter and the Thief (M)” *** and a half

NORWEGIAN filmmaker Benjamin Ree and the two people comprising this film’s title spent three years filming the material for this documentary with no idea of where it would take them.

They made it for people capable of acknowledging the emotive values of what they are watching uncluttered by expectations of beginning, middle and end that fiction films engender.

The challenging film that resulted is certainly not aimed at big box-office expectations. It begins with a robbery at the Nobel Art Gallery in Oslo. The thieves take two pictures by Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova. The film doesn’t spend time canvassing the immediate consequences for Barbora or the Norwegian thief, Karl-Bertil Nordland. What it delivers is a compelling portrait of compassion and forgiveness.

Ree begins to document the story after Barbora unbelievably invites Karl-Bertil to sit for a portrait, capturing the unlikely relationship that ensues when two damaged people find common ground and form an inseparable bond through their affinity for art.

The relationship changed direction after Karl-Bertil was seriously injured in a car crash. He needed full-time care during recovery. Barbora undertook a large share of that. The film mixes those sequences with footage shot in the prison where Karl-Bertil was jailed (if that is typical of Norwegian jails, it’s a wonderfully civilised approach to rehabilitation).

Ultimately, the film is about love between two people (not sexual – Barbora was in a comfortable relationship with a man called Øystein Stene who appears from time to time). It’s about how wonderfully beautiful paintings get created, almost photographic yet different enough to capture the soul of the subject (the stolen one, titled “Swan Song”, tells more than the body of a dead bird lying in marshland grasses). 

The closest that “The Painter and the Thief” comes to fictional cinema elements involves that painting. When last seen, it’s safe and well. 

We don’t know whether Barbora has sold it, but her joy at its recovery is quite wonderful to watch. Karl-Bertil, the carpenter who became a thief, joins her building a new frame and stretching the canvas to it. 

At Dendy