Cinema: “The stolen painting”, a master’s canvas

“It’s never too late for anything.” The sentence has the value of a sentence, almost of a proverb. This is the character played by Léa Drucker who pronounces it, about two thirds of the way through “Pollé Tableau”. Suggesting that there is always time, in life, to make a deal happen, make a declaration of love, hit the jackpot or have a decisive encounter.

These kinds of sentences, Eric Rohmer loved to highlight them in some of his films. “We can’t think of anything,” he warned before “The Aviator’s Wife”. Pascal Bonitzer, without pretension of affiliation, proceeds in a similar manner in his film. The argument? The rediscovery of a paintingEgon Schiele who was believed to have disappeared since the end of the war and who in reality was sleeping with individuals who had no idea that they owned a treasure.

About the? Describe from the inside and not without cynicism the cozy world of experts in museums and art galleries, collectors and other regulars of auction rooms. The style? Rather icy, with its rigorous framing and sanitized interiors, just to stick with the reality of a parallel world.

The challenge? Show how the discovery of a hidden painting can change the behavior of all kinds of people. Or dissect the mechanisms of an environment with this share of intrigues and secrets which corrupt the surface of appearances. Or even contrast the ruthless world of business with the simplicity of provincials who don’t even know who Egon Schiele is. And there, we hesitate. Indeed, the issues of the film are multiple. What does “The Stolen Painting” aim towards? The answer is not simple. Nor unique.

Same question about his hero. Who is it? By André Masson (Alex Lutz), the auctioneer who is about to make the sale of his life? From Bertina (Léa Drucker), who helps him and pulls the strings in the shadows? By Martin (Arcadi Radeff, Geneva actor recently awarded a prize for the series “Les indociles”), this young provincial who only realizes at the very end of the film what is happening to him? This is all very open. And even if we lean, in view of the conclusion, towards the third hypothesis, the other possibilities are just as valid.

Multiple playback tracks

And that’s what’s exciting to follow. Despite appearances and the exterior of predictability, we never know where the film will turn, or even how. Multiple digressive tracks – Bertina’s affair with a colleague, the tense relationship between Masson and his new assistant, like the latent conflict that she has with her father played by Alain Chamfort, the threatening behavior of young friends, bordering on Cailleras, by Martin – add to or suggest other avenues of reading, some exploited and others not. The subtexts are subservient to the red line or backbone of the story, influence it, orient it, and sometimes disorient us.

The film acts as a series of corpuscular waves crossing the different social strata evoked in this feature film. No one holds an ultimate truth, it is hidden everywhere and therefore nowhere. The corollary is that “The Stolen Painting” captures something intangible about ourselves, our hopes, our existences and attachments. It winds through all the corners of a reality that never allows itself to be confined.

All with a fairly rare solidity of writing, an exemplary sense of sequence (see the final scene, which just follows the anthological moment of the Schiele auction), and actors perfectly in tune. With as a bonus – let’s take it that way – the reappearance in a small role of the endearing young actor from “L’atelier” by the late Laurent Cantet, Matthew Lucci. One of the big favorites of the season.

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