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. "I read about the robbery from newspapers in Norway," explains Ree via a Zoom call from his home in Oslo, where he's seated beside a sun-mimicking lamp. (Winter nights in Norway are 18 hours long.) Ree introduced himself to the artist, Barbora Kysilkova, who'd recently moved to Oslo, and convinced.
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