The Art Thief

A series of rather outrageous events are taking place inside an art gallery.

This short dark comedy was inspired by the French New Wave from the 60s and 70s, especially by Louis Malle's Zazie dans le Metro.

The plot of this entertaining film revolves around an encounter between two strangers at an art gallery that starts of as awkward and turns into a hand-to-hand fight.

The two strangers are a man (Colfer) and a woman (Bigourdan) and although she is at the gallery to admire, he has other reasons for being there. He believes that the artist (who is his ex-partner) took his ideas and presented them as her own. Now, dressed in black and wearing a beanie, he intends to steal the valuable work of art that he claims belongs to him. As he and the woman stand in front of the special item, holding champagne flutes, they struck up a conversation (or maybe a minor argument) about the artist, before focusing on their romantic lives. Then, after an act of back-stabbing, the two of them proceed to fight each other.

There are several elements that stand out and make this fun to watch. The first would be the over-the-top performances by Colfer and Bigourdan and by Nam who plays the receptionist. The acting and the screenplay makes the characters immature and almost cartoonish (all in a positive way) and from start to finish, the protagonists never fail to be amusing.

Next there is the fighting, which covers a significant part of the film's 10-minute duration. The fight scenes are not brutal, instead they are rather childish due to Colfer and Bigourdan's acting and the way they were arranged by fight coordinator Ana Esposito.

Then, there is the entertaining music throughout that maintains a light-hearted atmosphere and also some cool sound effects that were probably added for comical effect.

Also, making things more interesting, the filmmakers utilise some awkward camera angles and on several occasions, characters break the fourth wall and look into the camera, addressing the viewer.

People who watch this film will see two people starting a rapport between them, before turning against each other. The humorous screenplay, the amusing performances and the fight scenes make this short a fun watch.