Inside

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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“Inside“ – is it a film about an art thief, or is it Art Appreciation 101 with tough love?

You can make up your mind when you catch it at Tropic Cinema.

This directorial debut by Vasilis Katsoupis stars Willem Dafoe in what’s essentially a one-man show about a burglar who gets trapped inside the skyscraper penthouse of a wealthy art collector. His quest to steal three paintings by Austrian Expressionist Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele becomes less about art and more about survival.

Reduced to drinking water from garden sprinklers, eating exotic fish from the owner’s aquarium, and chowing down on dog food, Nemo (the character played by Dafoe) finds himself imprisoned in an apartment that he managed to break into, but from which he cannot escape. He tries to build a scaffolding to an overhead skylight, floods the apartment by setting off a smoke alarm, obsesses over a housekeeper he sees in a security camera. He finds hidden passageways, observes dying birds, and writes messages to the absentee owner.

As weeks pass, Nemo suffers injuries from his attempts to break out, gets a toothache, experiences intermittent hallucinations, and all but loses his sanity. He begins to study the apartment’s art and draw his own pictures on the walls.

Nemo gives us the key to the film by remembering a story from his childhood: “A teacher asked him to choose three things to save in a house fire. Rather than his family, Nemo selected his cat, a phonograph record, and his sketchbook. He reflects that the cat died and he lost the album, but he still has the sketchbook.”

The lesson: “Art is for keeps.”

Especially if you have a good security system.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com