As hooks go, The Painter and the Thief has a great one: The Oscar-shortlisted documentary, by 31-year-old Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree, follows a friendship between a Czech painter and the tattooed gangster who stole two of her most valuable works from an Oslo art gallery. What begins as a caper with a twist, however, soon reveals itself to be a much deeper rumination on things like friendship, self-destructiveness and the artistic impulse.
