Rembrandt's J'Accuse

It's hard to tell whether this film was a spoof or a serious dissertation. Several other festival goers seemed convinced that it was a spoof, but that was based more on Greenaway's previous work than anything in this film itself. Personally I saw no reason to think it was a spoof, and I like to think I can usually pick up on sarcasm.

The film begins with the premise that modern art viewers are "impoverished in visual vocabulary", and goes through 31 "mysteries" in Rembrandt's famous painting The Night Watch. Commissioned as a local militia portrait, the painting does contain a number of odd elements, including a youth with an obscured face firing a rifle at another man, and a series of odd expressions and symbolism. However, the theories advanced for the meanings of these oddities are presented as "historical re-enactments" with absolutely no supporting evidence.

Overall the presentation is pompous and confusing. Taken as a spoof it's mildly amusing, taken as a real piece of scholarship it's poorly done. Either way it's confusing. A bit of humor makes it only vaguely tolerable.