The plot of this story lacks coherence. We are given no indication why the townspeople should find it in their interests to conceal the crimes which underlie the story, let alone why they should provide a certain degree of positive co-operation with the perpetrators. A work of art is destroyed by someone who ought to regard it as priceless if not indeed sacred.
The story requires that its more protagonistic characters refuse to communicate with each other, for no discernible reason or reasons, and that the principal repeatedly postpones investigating obviously key aspects of the puzzle with which he is ostensibly obsessed.
The revelation of the identity of one character is underlined by an act of physical exposure effected ex nihilo, and made ignoring the fact that the character is elderly.
The cinematography is like that of an American made-for-television movie of the late '60s or '70s. A study of the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer might have led to better results.
Since the alleged brilliance of an artist is essential to the story, the artwork used should have been something more than mediocre; instead, it is something less.
And no one in the film notes that St Sebastian, depicted by the central painting as being knifed to death, was in fact shot with arrows, and survived that experience (though not the subsequent beating).
The story requires that its more protagonistic characters refuse to communicate with each other, for no discernible reason or reasons, and that the principal repeatedly postpones investigating obviously key aspects of the puzzle with which he is ostensibly obsessed.
The revelation of the identity of one character is underlined by an act of physical exposure effected ex nihilo, and made ignoring the fact that the character is elderly.
The cinematography is like that of an American made-for-television movie of the late '60s or '70s. A study of the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer might have led to better results.
Since the alleged brilliance of an artist is essential to the story, the artwork used should have been something more than mediocre; instead, it is something less.
And no one in the film notes that St Sebastian, depicted by the central painting as being knifed to death, was in fact shot with arrows, and survived that experience (though not the subsequent beating).