The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting

For anyone sceptical about the big claims made for Ruiz, this is the film to see. It's the equivalent of a vintage Ken Russell arts psycho-doc, commissioned by French TV as a study of the philosopher, novelist (and high-class pornographer) Pierre Klossowski. The result is more like a haunted-house occult whodunit in suspended animation. A bumbling collector of pictures takes us on a guided tour of his Tonnerre collection - not the canvases, but their weird compositions re-enacted as tableaux vivants in a mansion and its gardens. Between his far-fetched interpretations of these pictures (mythological subjects with relevance to the society of the day), an enigma takes shape that can only be explained through 'the hypothesis...etc'. A tale of mystery and imagination that gives new meaning to the phrase 'intellectual thriller'. This is the real thing.