Review: The Painter and The Thief
ruth is surely stranger than fiction in one of the year’s best documentaries,The Painter and the Thief. The film follows two unlikely friends: Bertil and Barbora. When two of Barbora’s paintings from her exhibits in Oslo are stolen, she becomes obsessed with tracking down the thieves. She is able to meet and question Bertil who explains to her that he was high when he stole the paintings and doesn’t remember his motivation or where the paintings ended up.
What begins as an interrogation evolves into a genuine curiosity on the part of Barbora. She learns about Bertil’s life before he became a drug addict and she starts to genuinely care about him and his story. At one point in the film she asks if she can paint his portrait and it’s at the moment when the painting is revealed, when Bertil is moved to tears by her empathetic portrayal of the man who had wronged her.
Director, Benjamin Ree, follows their evolving friendship over the years - the struggles each of them face and the efforts they make to stay involved in each other’s lives, even in the darkest of moments. The film is a rare gift for its audience. It moves beyond the “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” log line to help us consider what we too might gain if we not only tried to understand someone else’s experience but we truly befriended them and showed them kindness without strings attached.