I can't begin to tell you how much I loved this movie. It
held me in its grip from start to finish, made me wonder just how someone could
be so possessed to do what Tim Jenison did and then made me notice that I had just
spent 80 minutes never looking at the clock to find out when the movie would
end. I just enjoyed it from start to finish.
Narrated by Penn Jillette and directed by Teller (of Penn
& Teller fame), the movie tells the story of Penn's friend Tim Jenison, an
inventor and electronics whiz who loved the paintings of 17th century Dutch
painter Johannes Vermeer. What intrigued him the most was the fact that
Vermeer's paintings had an almost photographic appearance to them, something
impossible to be done at that time since photography was years away from being
developed. How had Vermeer accomplished this? Jenison set out to discover how.
Using the knowledge that was at hand at the time, Jenison
decides that Vermeer must have used a series of mirrors and lenses to discover
a way to paint as he did. Jenison constructs a small version of what he
envisions Vermeer did and then paints a picture of his father in law from a
photograph, even though he'd never painted anything at all in his life. The
effect and painting that result is amazing. But that's on a smaller plain here,
not near the size of the actual paintings that Vermeer did. So how did he do
it?
This becomes the quest that Jenison then begins, a quest
that takes him well over a year to finish and be filmed. When attempting to
recreate Vermeer's painting "The Music Lesson", he begins by building
the entire scene real size from scratch, using as many methods of recreating
the actual items as possible. He goes so far as to research the way Vermeer would
have made the paint that he used to create this work and follows those same
sets of instructions to make his own paints. All of this works toward the
single goal of trying to paint his own rendition of Vermeer's work or this time
around, Tim's Vermeer.
This is perhaps one of the best made documentaries I've ever
seen. It never gets dull, never gets boring no matter if at times you are
simply watching someone paint. The entire process that Jenison goes through as
he tries to figure out just how it was done and then the patience he uses to
accomplish the same thing is mind boggling. While you enjoy each minute of the
film it almost takes on a Christmas morning type quality as you wait to see the
end product or if it can even be accomplished.
This film was nominated for best documentary last year and
it's easy to see why. What's not easy to understand is how it lost. It is an
amazing film that you won't want to miss and that you may want to revisit from
time to time. That's something most documentaries can not lay claim to,
multiple viewings. But this movie deserves that and more. On the downside it
leaves you wondering what Jenison has up his sleeve next. It also makes you
hope that both Penn and Teller do more items like this. Not only was this movie
worth watching once, it is one that deserves a place on the front of your
collection shelf.
Click here to order.
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