The Painting (2011)

If you like animated films in general, and like inventive ones in particular, see this. I think it's good on many levels—the story, the style, the feeling. Even the sentimental ending.

But my taste for animation varies wildly. I loved "Monsters, Inc." and hated "Pocahontas." Anime leaves me cold. It isn't enough to dazzle me with animation tricks, nor to play with children's stories in inventive ways on screen.

So this story works with lots of familiar (too familiar) tropes—types of friends, heroes, problems that we know well. The animation (French) is different than both Pixar and Disney styles we know well, and also different than, say Wallace and Gromit (which wasn't American). But it isn't self-sustaining. I mean, it's a little constrained and polite, even when it is taking visual chances. It's all very "nice" all the time, and that goes with the friendly quality of the movie, too.

I sound like a curmudgeon. Not so (I think)! But I tried and tried to get absorbed and just got, well, bored. Sad to say. Judge for yourself. I will say that I think you need to give it a half an hour or so to get into some of the range of the film. But then, if it hasn't hooked you, it probably won't.

. . . painter has been done previously, with Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello's SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR. "French" has always stood out as an imitative culture. The language is so much like English that French politicians pass laws as to how many "English" words can migrate onto French screens annually (just as Americans try to limit the influx of "guest workers"). "French cuisine" is virtually interchangeable with Italian cooking, and most French composers simply copy what the German, English, and Italians have done a few decades earlier. France has lost all its important wars because its armies are always equipped with the weapons of yesteryear. When a French person such as Madame Curie actually stumbles upon something new, such as radiation, they can't comprehend it. All Curie's original notes are too radioactive to be handled even today, and hundreds of Frenchwomen including Curie family members died from licking the little paint brushes they used to make the numbers on watches glow in the dark. (While the French were decorating time pieces, America beat Germany to using radioactivity to power and dominate the world!) This cartoon, THE PAINTING, is delightful enough to merit a rating of 8 (from 10). However, this film--which grossed slightly more than $11,000 in America--also is derivative and French (which is pretty much saying the same thing).

Fantastic visuals, simply riveting with a perfectly executed structure. However, in my opinion it never reached it's full potential because it was held back. The film possessed a wonderful world without really exploring and explaining it in full detail, perhaps the director was not daring enough to go above and beyond in terms of the story line. Once the story was introduced, it struggled to maintain it's structural appeal. Though it contained a sensationally unique and stylistic appeal captivating the general audience. Despite the simple story it is a work bursting with imagination whether it be in art direction or its dazzling picture-hopping set piece.