Tim's Vermeer

If you know the duo Penn & Teller, then at the beginning you can’t help thinking that this would be a spoof documentary, because this magic-debunking duo bring us this documentary “about revealing the mystery behind Vermeer’s exquisite style through a record of an experiment by a talentless billionaire inventor who has a crazy theory that would fundamentally change the opinion about the works of one of the greatest painters of all time, and at the same time, this talentless billionaire inventor is building a movie set in his garage in Texas so that, after several months of intricate work on a reproduction of The Music Lesson, he can prove his theory " isn’t very trust inspiring. Especially if this is all about filming the painting of a picture, therefore basically a very thankless and boring activity. You might easily expect them to be making fun of the audience, but... But no, it’s a real documentary and so good that it tempts even the greatest daubers among us to pull out some black and white photos, buying a dental mirror on a stick, brushes, paints and to try if it really works. In any case, apart from potential (re)discovery of an interesting painting by numbers-type technique, this is mainly the powerful story of Tim Jenison who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice a good few years of his life doing incredibly meticulous work with an unsure result. Without a grant. Although with a couple of billion tucked away. (02/06/2014)