“A unique
occult whodunit.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Chilean-born exile, now living in France, Raúl Ruiz’s opaque
experimental film The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting was made for French
television originally as a documentary to profile philosopher, writer and
pornographer Pierre Klossowski, but then evolved into this curious collaboration
about the meaning of art. What results is a unique occult whodunit. Its
critical acclaim gave the filmmaker an international following.

A bumbling unnamed art collector (Jean Rougeul) guides us and an
unseen offscreen interviewer around the works of a fictional middling 19th
century painter named Frederic Tonnerre, located in a mansion, in an attempt
to solve the mystery of a missing seventh painting. The search involves
the sloppily made live reanactment of the compositions of each tableaux
vivants (using real actors). The collector and interviewer argue over the
deeper meanings of the paintings, which also relates to the creative film
experience. The interpretations of each picture seems to be a big stretch
as it relates the mythological subjects with today’s society. The collector
believes these paintings are keys to a larger secret, one related to an
historical scandal. This theory presupposes the existence of a seventh
painting, the crucial missing link in the chain. The collector believes
this painting has been stolen, but the interviewer claims it never existed.

This intellectual thriller is a puzzler that remains ambiguous (which
I don’t find as a virtue) and can only be understood through each hypothesis
put forth, that is if you can make sense out of any of this at all. It
asks a lot of the viewer, as it reminds us that what is unsaid can at times
be more important than what is said. This resounds as a sly dig at the
intransigent nature of personal interpretations of art. Obviously, not
for all tastes, but if you enjoy a film that is a pure mind trip then this
one should take you there … or, at least, it will try to take you there
if you are not bored out of your mind by the journey.