. . . 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).
Review of The Painting
