Mark Reviews Movies: RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 7, 2019

It almost feels as if Ruben Brandt, Collector could use a series of footnotes. Here is a strange animated thriller about an art therapist, haunted by dreams of famous works of art that leap from the canvas to try to kill him. Co-writer/director Milorad Krstic fills us in on pieces that are vital to the plot. That's helpful on occasions, since the filmmakers have taken a decidedly Cubist approach to the designs of their characters—especially the ones in the backdrop, which move with the jerkiness of a Terry Gilliam animation.

The entire film, though, is filled with specific references to famous pieces and generalized allusions to assorted art styles. There seems to be at least one in-joke in about every other shot, from assorted background extras to a moment when flowers on a shattered windshield look very much like an Impressionist painting. All of it comes and goes so quickly that, even if one possessed an extensive knowledge of art history, it would be impossible to catch every single instance of the filmmakers' use of visual quotations.

That makes the film quite involving, if only as a kind of guessing game, in which one notices a unique character or background element and attempts to match it to an artist or style, or a memory test, in which one tries to remember as many possible references as possible to look up later. Apart from that quality, though, it's also a weird story that both embraces its weirdness and is far more accessible than it might sound.

The accessibility comes from the plot, which has renowned therapist Ruben Brandt (voice of Iván Kamarás) getting involved in a series of art heists with his patients, housed at an institute shaped like a Möbius strip. He comes to believe that collecting the works invading his nightmares will cure him of them.

It's vital, too. His nightmarish encounters with famous art works are leaving him with wounds and scars. Among the baker's dozen of paintings on Ruben's list are Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (The goddess' hair tries to strangle Ruben), Édouard Manet's Olympia (The cat at the foot of the bed tries to maul him), and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks (The be-suited man with his back to the viewer turns to reveal a bandage-faced killer).

Among the patients/co-conspirators are kleptomaniac stuntwoman Mimi (voice of Gabriella Hámori), bodyguard/Rodin-statue-lookalike Bye-Bye Joe (voice of Matt Devere), and a two-faced two-dimensional man (His mother was three-dimensional, while his father was a line), whose thieving ways are helped by the fact that he can slip between tiny cracks (until he put on some weight). Among the globetrotting locations for the heists are Paris, Chicago, and Tokyo, where the thieves disguise their intentions with a phony piece of performance art to an admiring audience.

Meanwhile, Mike Kowalski (voice of Csaba Márton), a private investigator of uncertain paternity, is on Mimi's trail. Mike is a movie-obsessed man, whose apartment is decorated with assorted, dangerous props—knives and straight razor blades, each one labeled with the movie from whence it came—and who drinks liquor cooled with an ice cube shaped like Alfred Hitchcock's famous silhouette. His assistant Marina (voice of Katalin Dombi) is always at his beck and call—and always, somehow, appears in different, romantic locales when she picks up the phone (e.g., a detective's office with a nighttime skyline and an elegant spa, where we discover that, in addition to her two heads, Marina has three breasts).

If the film's design is founded upon its hodgepodge of art works and styles (Again, though, it doesn't feel like a random mishmash because of the film's own distinct, unifying look), then the story is grounded by the detective's love of movies. Krstic and Radmila Roczkov's screenplay incorporates a multitude of genres. The plot is part '60s-style heist flick, part atmospheric neo-noir, part surrealistic nightmare, part gangster movie, part conspiracy-laden and psychology-based mystery, and part big-budget Hollywood action movie. It's the sort of jumble that can only be pulled off in animation, since there's no way we're expecting a straightforward tale from a film that looks like this one.

The heists are amusing, with Bye-Bye Joe pretending to be the statue he looks like and a couple of uncultured tourists who just happen to be at almost every robbery location. The nightmares are evocative, leading to a back story about government-funded experiments, involving filmstrips with famous art works spread across certain frames, that were performed by Ruben's father. The action sequences, which start early with a car chase through the streets of Paris, make full use of the complete freedom of movement and scale afforded by animation. A later chase on a highway—in which the thieves have to contend with a car, two semi-trucks, and helicopter—is the sort of cleverly and clearly choreographed spectacle to which too many modern action movies can only aspire.

All of this only makes sense from a perspective of dream logic (Krstic hints at that early on, with a relatively realistic sequence of Ruben riding a train before a figure from a painting starts viciously biting his arm, and confirms it by the end). It can't be analyzed to find any deeper meaning, if only because the film hits us with so much so quickly and constantly. Ruben Brandt, Collector is to be experienced as a weird and wild ode to art.

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