Rembrandt van Rijn - Licht und Schatten

... and maybe not much besides, in my humble opinion. But first, it is essential to say that the film is absolutely gorgeous, and for that reason alone deserves to be seen.Many scenes are moments of intense beauty, in a way quite reminiscent of the Flemish paintings of the seventeenth century (in fact, some of the most famous Rembrandt paintings are stunningly reproduced on the screen).Wood, cloth, pigments, wine, flesh, copper... every kind of substance is here filmed with a passion and a love for details that echoes the best still-lifes of the old Flemish masters. If you ever thought that water dripping on a window pane, dim light reflected by a helmet or the face of a woman who is sleeping or giving birth can be fascinating, hypnotizing things (and I, for one, gladly agree), this is undoubtedly one for you.Moreover, the film has of course something that the still-lifes could only allude to, and that is movement. The water actually drips, the light on the helmet imperceptibly changes and the barely visible moves on the quiet face of Rembrandt's wife are a more poignant thing than I could say.The way scenes succeed to one another, without always being closely related (I don't mean it's surrealism, I just mean that the storyline isn't what gives this movie its coherence), but with beautiful changes of scenery or point of view, gives the film a poetic quality achieved only in few.

Now, I certainly wouldn't recommend Rembrand fecit to anyone.As you can probably guess from what precedes, the pace is extremely slow. Nothing much happens in this movie, and if you don't already know a couple of things about the life of Rembrandt, it may almost seem confused at some points. Don't expect to see a standard biopic, because that's clearly not what director Stelling intended to do.

Besides, Rembrandt appears here as a very curious character, on the verge of neurosis, I would say. Stelling's brother, who acts the part (and is, by the way, quite good) utters no more than twenty or thirty sentences in the whole film. The other characters are no incorrigible chatterboxes either, but Rembrandt's eerie silence sometimes made me want to scream.Admittedly, what we have here is a kind of psychological study, and a comment about art and creation, particularly the art of self-portrait (the fascination of Rembrandt for his own face is repeatedly emphasized all along the movie). Now, I confess I'm not crazy about that kind of thing, which I tend to think too self-conscious, and a bit boring.In biographies, Rembrandt seems a slightly more joyous character that what we have here - apparently, he was able to laugh.

Fellini was a master when it came to associating visual poetry with exuberant joy and life. OK, I can see that that's not what Stelling intended to do, but even, I confess that I can't see the point in being so depressing.The cheerlessness of many "arty" movies seems more of an intellectual fashion than an artistic necessity to me. Anyway, you're warned.

But I don't want to seem too harsh, so let's repeat: the film is a visual masterpiece, a treat for the eyes, so if you're interested at all in visual arts (and if you're not, why the hell are you here?) you simply have to see it.

Don't miss it! Astonishing, beautiful film. You will appreciate the outstanding care, love and admiration felt by an excellent director towards one of the great masters of all time. Each frame is a painting in itself, the light reminding you of Vermeer at times, of Franz Hals often and, obviously, of Rembrand himself during most of the film. There's no doubt in my mind that everyone who loves art and loves painting will cherish every scene in this movie. There are no cars exploding, no fistfights nor shooting guns whatsoever and dialogs could be said to be rather scarce.

Of course, having that into consideration, I would hardly recommend it to lovers of Schwarzenegger's films.

This movie is simply unwatchable. Zooming in and out on paintings isn't interesting, it's boring, very very boring. It feels like some poor documentary you had to watch at school, poor acting, annoying voice over, no storyline at all and above all zooming in and out to try to make paintings more interesting, as if they need it.. Don't waste your time on this garbage, go watch some real Rembrandt's and Stelling's ''De Wisselwachter'', his only decent movie, instead. I'd also like to add that this director thinks of himself as Rembrandt's second coming. Avoid at all cost. I must write another line because otherwise they won't accept this review at all, it's actually very hard to write more than 9 lines about this piece of pseudo art.