Tim's Vermeer (2013)

Directed by: Teller
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Tim’s Vermeer” is a documentary directed by the multifaceted artist, Teller (illusionist, magician, director, actor and comedian), and co-produced by his partner on stage Penn Jillette (the entertainment team is known as ‘Penn & Teller’), featuring Tim Jenison’s project based on several experiments to prove a theory consisting in that Vermeer used a mirror and a lens from a camera obscura to create the perfect light/effects in his extraordinary paintings. In a mix of art, madness and technology, he’ll try to demonstrate this concept by painting a Vermeer himself. Tim’s obsession becomes more interesting when we realize he’s not a painter, but rather an ingenious man, acquainted with new technologies and evincing a natural curiosity on how things work. However, what is shown here in more than an hour, could have been told in a few minutes. The film definitely stands out from the usual procedures of a common documentary but won’t be a piece of entertainment for everybody, even considering the plausible techniques and conclusions presented. There were moments when my curiosity was put on hold due to an exhaustive exploration of the methods. Not always exciting, “Tim’s Vermeer” failed where Peter Greenaway succeeded with “Rembrandt’s J’Accuse”, his intriguing study about the work of another Dutch master painter. The continuous sound of a classical piano follows the images, in a film that makes controversial revelations and promotes Tim’s intellectual capacities.