The Painting Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

The Painting Blu-ray Movie Review

Art imitates Art.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 24, 2013

The French animation industry has been experiencing an incredible renaissance over the past several years, with a number of high profile films becoming international sensations. Going back as far as Michel Ocelot’s charming 1998 opus Kirikou and the Sorceress, there have been a rather astounding number of global animated successes originating in France, properties as disparate as (in no particular order) The Illusionist, Persepolis, Interstella 5555, The Triplets of Belleville and The Secret of Kells (some of these were international co-productions, but all of them had significant French input). I myself have reviewed a glut of charming French animated fare in just the past few months alone, including A Cat in Paris, A Monster in Paris 3D (dog lovers please note these two are not the same film under different titles), The Rabbi's Cat (what is it with the French and felines?) and Tales of the Night. The incredible variety of content, tone and style in all of the above features points to an industry which is both vibrant and, even better, willing to repeatedly take chances, something that the sequel-prone assembly line American animation industry might want to take note of. And so on one level the magnificence of The Painting should come as no great surprise. And yet on another level, this beautiful, thought provoking “little” film is one of the most supremely unexpected treasures yet to emerge from French animators, and as the daunting list above should hopefully prove, that is saying a lot.

The Painting initially seems to be an artistic take on the Romeo and Juliet tale. We’re introduced to two lovers, Ramo and Claire, who come from two of the three different “castes” who reside in a painting. Ramo is an Alldun, a fully finished painting,while Claire is a Halfie, one of an unfinished group of characters whom the Allduns despise. Even more despised are the Sketchies, characters so incompletely drawn that other characters often don’t even realize they’re there. While the Allduns are complacently content in the large palace they all inhabit, both the Halfies and the Sketchies feel they’ve been abandoned by their creator, and they wonder why.

Claire doesn’t quite believe Ramo when he describes her attributes in living color—mostly because she’s resolutely black and white (or at least ochre), but these two would be lovers feel a yearning to contact their creator to figure out why he’s abandoned two thirds of this painterly world. Did they do something wrong? The main gist of the plot however actually follows Lola, another Halfie who happens to be Claire’s best friend. Though a series of misunderstandings and misadventures, Lola, Ramo and a sketchie named Plume set off—by mistake—on a quest to find the Painter, the creator whom they so ardently desire to understand.

Already it should be rather obvious that there’s a rather “meta” approach to much of The Painting, one which cloaks some very real human quandaries in the guise of a supposed children’s entertainment. The three characters ultimately discover the “end” of their particular painting, and soon Lola has entered another one, in this case a kind of Deco-esque war scene, where she soon is captured but enlists the aid of a young corpsman named Magenta, who helps her escape, with Magenta not far behind. Ultimately this motley quartet starts poking around the Painter’s studio and actually find a self-portrait of their creator, a creation himself who is not particularly pleased to be questioned by other paintings.

The Painting is one of the most resolutely ontological animated films of all time, one which combines the questioning “hey, what are we, anyway?” ethos of Toy Story with a decidedly more Continental point of view. The film is both incredibly subtle and overly obvious, detailing the stresses these characters experience when they figure out they’re not the only creations in the Painter’s multiple universes, as well as their increasing independence and self-reliance as their quest continues. On one level, most adults will intuitively understand many of these points without the film’s sometimes overweening indicating. On another level, the conceit of The Painting is so audacious, and so generally well handled, that it, like its subjects, becomes a work of Art.

The film is notable for its incredibly distinctive visual style. Director Jean-François Languionie pays homage to several famous painters, evoking iconic works while at the same time creating his own unique aesthetic. There’s something rather carnival like in several of the character animations, and indeed one of the paintings the characters enter leads them to a bacchanal in Venice. But everything from cubism to surrealism to hyperrealism is explored in this piece, even as it mines various peccadilloes of humans, whether that be class consciousness, racial enmity or different belief systems. It’s a rather heady stew, one which may be too “on the nose” for some viewers who want their philosophy delivered more discursively, but it’s hard to think of a more ambitious animated offering that’s come out in the past couple of years. The Painting may in fact ask more questions than it answers, but that also may be its ultimate strength and cause for its hopefully enduring appeal.

The Painting Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Painting is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm and G Kids with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Languionie evidently crafted most if not all of this feature digitally, which is quite remarkable when one considers the texture and more traditional look of much of the film. Colors are brilliantly diverse in this film, though they tend to favor subtle blues and purples, with hints of green and yellow also entering the palette. Line detail is extremely sharp and while the film can't be said to be traditionally "sharp" looking—it has an intentionally soft ambience quite a bit of the time—the image is stable and artifact free. There's an increasing use of hyperrealism and finally actual live action as the film moves toward its denouement, and those aspects also look great.

The Painting Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Painting features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes in both the original French as well as English. The two tracks are virtually identical save for the obvious language differences. These tracks are quite subtle at times, with immersion handled in terms of some great ambient noises (there are so-called "Flowers of Death" the whip around, accompanied by nice panning foley effects). There is in fact nothing really overtly "showy" about the tracks, but they create an incredible mood and ambience which is remarkably consistently maintained throughout the feature. Dialogue and an impressively quirky score by Pascal Le Pennec sound excellent, with sterling fidelity.

The Painting Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:13)


• Making Of (720p; 32:42) is a really interesting piece which gets into some of what might be termed the philosophy behind the film, including interviews with screenwriter Anik Le Ray and director Jean-François Laguionie.


• Slideshow (720p; 9:46)

The Painting Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As I mentioned in my recent From Up On Poppy Hill Blu-ray review, some Western viewers who have only seen typical animated fare like Disney or Pixar features are often times a bit confounded by Studio Ghibli outings, since those films tend to be quite a bit slower and defy typical American tropes like "character arcs" or three act structures. The Painting is much more in line with American outings from those two standpoints at least, but it has a definite European flavor that sets it rather far apart from the vast bulk of American animated offerings. But for the adventurous viewer who wants a challenging film that manages to combine a number of rather unlikely elements, including art history and ontology, The Painting is a must see piece. This Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and even without a wealth of supplementary material, it easily comes Highly recommended.