Ruben Brandt, Collector
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''Ruben Brandt, Collector'' () is a 2018 Hungarian animated
crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...
thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...
film directed by . It is the first feature film of the Slovenian-born director, who previously won a
Silver Bear for Best Short Film The Silver Bear for the Best Short Film is the second most prestigious prize awarded in the short films competition at the Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an a ...
at the
Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...
in 1995. The film tells the story of a psychotherapist who enlists creative thieves to steal the paintings that are haunting his dreams.


Plot

Unlikely as it seems, Ruben Brandt travels by train along with Duveneck's Whistling Boy and is attacked by Velázquez's Infanta Margarita Teresa. It is revealed that he had been having a nightmare. Acrobatic thief Mimi steals Cleopatra's Fan from the Louvre Museum. She had been hired by crimelord Vincenzo Delangello to steal another item, le Régent Diamant, but she had a bout of kleptomania. After escaping from P.I. Kowalski (and sacrificing the fan to escape), she understands that she has psychological problems and seeks help from psychotherapist Ruben Brandt, specialized in treating artistic souls. Brandt recommends to "possess your problems to conquer them". She discovers that Brandt has panic attacks and nightmares in front of the Venus of Urbino painting, so to help him and to demonstrate the progress of the therapy, she recruits the doctor's other patients (former bodyguard Bye-Bye Joe and thieves Membrano Bruno and Fernando) to steal the painting for him - literally possessing his problem to conquer it. Brandt sees that the method works, and reveals to them that he has nightmares about twelve other paintings. The group travels the world stealing those paintings in daring heists. The press speaks of "The Collector" as the thief, since these paintings cannot be sold even on the black market so the thief is stealing those for him or herself. The insurance company puts a reward on the Collector in addition to putting Kowalski on her trail; Delangello looks for the Collector too, understanding Mimi is at least linked to the Collector. John Cooper, a former associate of Brandt's late father working with subliminals in the CIA, realizes that Brandt is the culprit (because the list of stolen paintings is exactly the list they had worked with) and calls Kowalski, but before Kowalski arrives, a mercenary, Kris Barutanski, kills Cooper, trying to find the Collector to deliver to him. Even so, Kowalski gets clues, unaware that Barutanski is hot on his heels. Examining Brandt's late father's house, Kowalski sees that the movies (with subliminals of the works; we had seen a flashback in which Gerhard had forced his son Ruben to watch the cartoon movies he liked, even though the boy would have preferred to go out for snails (maybe that's why he now has snail-shaped ice cubes) and discovers that Ruben Brandt is the Collector; he fights and kills Barutanski there. Kowalski also finds out that Gerhard Brandt is also Kowalski's father, so Kowalski and Ruben are half-brothers - Kowalski's mother had left Gerhard so that Gerhard would not also do experiments with Kowalski. When Brandt and his accomplice try to steal a Renoir, the police are waiting for them but they escape. Dangelo's hitmen pursue them without sparing resources, but even so they escape from them too. Mimi then has a dream in which she manages to contain her urge to steal from her but when she tries to tell Brandt, he turns into Kowalski. There is only one painting left: Warhol's Elvis I, II, in Tokyo. Kowalski deduces it is the target, but Delangello is spying on him. Brandt's gang plans to steal the painting by faking a public performance; when Dangelo's men discover them and try to stop them, the audience believes that the performance includes the fight. They do steal the painting, that joins the other paintings in Brandt's wall. Brandt seems like he is going to have a nightmare, but he wakes up on a quiet train, with an art book that his accomplice has dedicated to him, and Kowalski appears in the reflection of the glass (The movie had started with Frigyes Karinthy's quote "In my dream I was two cats and I was playing with each other"). We then see that the train moving forward is a single car without a locomotive, and the camera shows us a snail.


Cast

*
Iván Kamarás Ivan Kamaras (born 22 December 1972) is a Hungarian actor who became first known worldwide for his role as Agent Steel in the 2008 superhero fantasy thriller '' Hellboy II: The Golden Army'', directed by Guillermo del Toro. Kamaras voices the t ...
as Ruben Brandt ** Liam Aaron Grant as Young Ruben Brandt * Csaba "Kor" Márton as Mike Kowalski * Gabriella Hámori as Mimi * Matt Devere as Bye-Bye Joe * Henry Grant as Membrano Bruno, Van Gogh's Postman and Renoir * Christian Nielson Buckholdt as Fernando * Katalin Dombi as Marina * Paul Bellantoni as John Cooper *
Luca Bercovici Luca Bercovici (born February 22, 1957) is an American filmmaker, writer, producer and actor. In 1979, as part of Bercovici's earliest involvements in filmmaking, he spent six months in Japan as a dialogue director for the miniseries, ''Shōg ...
as Kris Barutanski * Butch Engle as Vincenzo Delangello * Irén Bordán as Eva Kowalski * Scott Hoke as Professor Walden * Iván Hegedus as Boris * Péter Linka as George * Virginia Proud as Margaret *
Dave Fennoy Dave Fennoy is an American voice actor. His video game roles have included Lee Everett in '' The Walking Dead'', Bluebeard in ''The Wolf Among Us'', Finch in ''Tales from the Borderlands'', Gabriel the Warrior in '' Minecraft: Story Mode'', ...
as Garreth Graham * Geoffrey Thomas as Gerhard Brandt


Paintings depicted in the movie

The film depicts the following thirteen paintings that haunted Ruben Brandt: *
Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille (; December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted '' en plein ai ...
Portrait of Renoir (1867) *
Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli ( ; ) or simply known as Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 1 ...
The Birth of Venus ''The Birth of Venus'' ( ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus (mythology), Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ful ...
(c. 1486) *
Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; ;  – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He ...
Portrait of Antoine, Prince of Lorraine (c.1543) *
Frank Duveneck Frank Duveneck (né Decker; October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. Early life Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic whe ...

Whistling Boy (1872)
*
Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...

Woman Holding A Fruit (1893)
*
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin (1888) *
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realism painter and printmaker. He is one of America's most renowned artists and known for his skill in depicting modern American life and landscapes. Born in Nyack, New York, to a ...
Nighthawks (1942) *
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgium, Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature ...
The Treachery of Images ''The Treachery of Images'' () is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as ''This Is Not a Pipe'', ''Ceci n'est pas une pipe'' and ''The Wind and the Song''. It is on display at the Los Angeles County Muse ...
(1929) *
Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French Modernism, modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism (art movement), R ...
Olympia (1863) *
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Woman with book (1932)
*
Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...
Venus of Urbino The ''Venus of Urbino'' (also known as ''Reclining Venus'') is an oil painting by Italian painter Titian, depicting a nude young woman, traditionally identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings o ...
(1538) *
Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptised 6 June 15996 August 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the Noble court, court of King Philip IV of Spain, Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He i ...
Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress (1659) *
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
Elvis l, ll (1964)


Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has score based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Ruben Brandt, Collector is flawed from a storytelling standpoint, but the eye-catching animation is more than enough to make this offbeat thriller well worth watching."


Awards and accolades

In 2018, the film received
Annie Awards The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in American cinema and television. Origi ...
nominations in two categories, Best Animated Independent Feature and Editorial in an Animated Feature Production. The film received awards at the following film festivals: * Bucharest International Animation Film Festival (Anim'est) (2018): Best Feature Film *
Seville European Film Festival The Seville European Film Festival (SEFF; ) is an annual film festival dedicated to European cinema held in November in Seville, Spain, since 2004. History The festival is an initiative of the Instituto de la Cultura y las Artes de Sevilla ( ...
(2018): Best Screenplay Award; Art Cinema Award *
Trieste Film Festival The Trieste Film Festival is an international film festival founded in 1989. Held annually on the third week of January in Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Region ...
(2019): Sky Arte Award * Anima - The Brussels Animation Film Festival (2019): BeTV Award for Best Animated Feature of the Official Selection * World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb (2019): Grand Prix, Feature Film


References


External links

* * * {{Sony theatrical animated features 2010s American films 2010s English-language films 2010s heist films 2018 animated films 2018 crime thriller films 2018 films Art crime English-language crime thriller films Films about dreams Films about psychoanalysis Films about the visual arts Hungarian adult animated films Hungarian crime thriller films Hungarian multilingual films Sony Pictures Classics animated films