Nightwatching 夜巡林布蘭

Disgusting at first; then, strange; then, unbearable; then... marvelous.

The plot is not hard to follow at all, as long as you give up paying attention to its complex unraveling. Rembrant has been commissioned to do a painting for a cocky crew of rapscallion musketeers from the Dutch civic militia. During the two years it takes him to complete his ambiguous work, the mischief of the priggish amateurs leads to the death of one of the subjects of the painting.

Giving up all faith in the movie would be an option, if it weren’t for the strength of gravity of personality provided by Freeman’s Rembrant. His honesty is his strength.

Meanwhile, Rembrant’s wife and faithful companion births his son, Titus, before dying some months later. Trying to make sense of the mind-numbing banter of the 17th century pomp can be a struggle, as it oozes from the darkness surrounding the cold-blooded murder plot, shrouded in secrecy and dirty dealings.

Rembrant is renowned for little witty hints of the subject’s character by distortions of the body and gestures or symbolism. “How do you decide what to paint?” enquires one of the young subjects, to which Rembrant honestly replies; whatever he feels like, if he’s been drinking, if the person is a brutish villain of bad character, whether he was paid less than he thinks he deserves, whether he was in a good mood, and so forth.

If it hasn’t already done so, the blatant honesty of Rembrant begins to get up your nose, with the militiamen asking just who this upstart thinks he is.

The truth is that Rembrant doesn’t know. All he knows is that he can’t see, “with a spark of light or two if your lucky,” and he wants out. He does this by every cunning depravity at his hand. But inevitably never escapes the nightmare.

The theme of the whole movie indicates a courage and integrity on standing up to the audience and bellowing those cataclysmic tones “The horror! The horror!” worth more in an age of consumer-driven artlessness than any mainstream film’s box office could ever pull off.

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