Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)

In 1665 Johannes Vermeer painted "Girl with a Pearl Earring", a portrait of an unknown subject (or a so called "tronie" = face/expression, to describe it more precisely). In 1999 Tracy Chevalier wrote a novel with the same name offering a story for the mystery behind the face with a pearl. And in 2003 the movie came out. Which I, looking for a more serene movie subject, I've decided to watch today.

The girl in the painting is identified in the novel as a maid hired by the painter's family. From here onwards we have a drama mingled with romance, which to be fair I was a bit afraid of, but my assumption that an artificial subject integrated in real history can't get too far fortunately confirmed. Or more precisely it stopped on time so I didn't get overly subjective on this. Therefore, the movie is indeed "calm", maybe even a bit dry in its story development. But I didn't decide to write this entry for the tale of a mistery as big as the painted pearl...

The main reason for which I would recommend "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is the way the movie is shot and backed up by the score. Eduardo Serra got an Oscar nod for his camera work in this back in 2003 and (since we're getting closer to the season) I think it's one of the situations when the Academy snubbed the right winner sending the statue at the time to "Master & Commander".. This doesn't matter that much. The result stays, where the light in the movie is used such that we have an entire series of frames that look basically like painted photo stills. Alexandre Desplat was not yet very known at the time among the composers in Hollywood, but you can clearly see here why he got to be. The conclusion is that if you want to watch a movie technically worked as less and less unfortunately are, no matter what you think of the subject, you should probably watch this...

Rating: 3+ out of 5