The Artist and the Model (2012)

THE ARTIST AND THE MODEL  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Fernando Trueba
    Jean Rochefort, Aida Folch, Claudia Cardinale,
    Götz Otto, Chus Lampreave, Mateo Deluz
The place is the South of France, somewhere near the Spanish border. The time is World War Two. The artist is an aging sculptor who has run out of ideas and apparently hasn't worked in a while. The model is a young vagrant who turns up in the town square where she catches the eye of the artist's wife, once a much-sought-after model herself. It's a nicely understated character study, photographed in black and white, which effectively captures a sculptor's view of the world, a concentration on line and contour more than color. Jean Rochefort plays the artist. Aida Folch plays the model. Claudia Cardinale plays the artist's wife, who knows exactly what's going on between her husband and the girl whose figure he's trying to capture in clay and stone. As a study in artistic collaboration, it's a useful companion piece to Gilles Bourdos' "Renoir" and Jacques Rivette's "La Belle Noiseuse".