That Thorvaldsen...he was one heck of a sculptor. I know because I got to see many of his works when I was in Copenhagen recently and I was particularly impressed by his many works in the Church of Our Lady. He was incredibly gifted. However, this film is not all that exciting...perhaps even if you are a Thorvaldsen groupie. That's because director Carl Theodor Dreyer chose an unconventional way to explore the man and his art...by focusing almost entirely on the sculptures themselves and telling us precious little about Thorvaldsen. Apart from a blurb written in the beginning, the film doesn't so much talk about him but describes his pieces of art in very glowing and ultra-flowery terms (ways which no one but a pretentious art jerk would use) as the camera slowly rotates around the artwork. Yes, the sculptures are gorgeous...but the manner in which all this was presented did little for me. Sorry all you Dreyer groupies but this film just didn't impress me apart from the nice camera-work. It manages to make some exciting art seem, well, rather dull.
Review of Thorvaldsen
