The “Nobody Man”...
A Story About the Man Who Lost Everything
History...
In terms of historical context, The Mastermind contrasts with all the typical films that explored the theme in the 70s and 80s and have revisited it in recent times. The point here is not to valorize aesthetics or transform the visual into something mythical: it goes beyond. The Mastermind is about a man who never valued what he had, who increasingly saw himself imprisoned by his own bankruptcy—and I'm not talking about money. The man who risks losing everything has already lost his own essence, becoming unable to question the things around him. James is a fearful person who, in Kelly Reichardt's irony, gently loses his sanity. The softness of the decay also reflects a social view of the marginal, but not the marginal person: marginal art.
The film presents an intrinsic debate about how punitive a crime against art should be. The theft of a painting becomes something enormous, and throughout the film, a brief, subtle voice whispers: they're just paintings... So what do we have then? Is art a "less" important crime than others? This question leads us to explore a slightly more uncomfortable side: is art, as historical heritage, properly valued?
The answer is "no." However, when we have cases similar to the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in 2024, we notice that the valuation was never about preserving what is historical, but rather the potential selling price it will have. Once exposed on the illegal market, a work tends to double its cost value; there is an entire labor force involved, which is the act of theft itself. And Reichardt, in the film, insists on reminding us that as long as art is considered more of a commodity than heritage, the illegal market will continue to exist. This is the film's main debate: does society as a whole care more about the work itself or the buzz it generates?
What about the art?
The question to be raised sparks an even more intense debate: why is art not seen as living history? The answer, according to the film, is that art has not been valued from its origin, from the moment humanity decided to separate it from its history. Cinema as art is considered historical, and why? It is through memories that we learn who we really are, but at some point in history, humans decided that works preceding certain technological points are considered works "from another time." What does this mean? Humanity decided that its history began with technology; therefore, what came before a certain period is a prototype: there are no feelings, there is no content. Thus, the film highlights this debate by intensifying it from a core, and so we reach the true reason for this text: Kelly Reichardt and her irony.
Kelly builds a universe within a universe. James, as mentioned, is miserable, but his surroundings are not. There is a family, children, a wife... James does not see the world around him as something tangible because he judges himself to be greater than he is. He is not a flawed man for having entered the world of crime, but for having chosen it. Being a criminal should not be treated as something deserving of death, but James is the reason this idea persists. According to cases like his, every criminal had the opportunity, the choice. It is these cases that generate a discourse of hate that attaches itself to a structurally violent society, punishing young people who, indeed, had no other option but crime. James is a hypothetical figure of a society that does not see its own incongruities, which will use men like James to justify hatred for the boy who robbed a bakery because he had nothing to eat.
Kelly Reichardt has always been a subtly political director. In films like River of Grass, her first feature, we see an extremely meticulous and aggressive worldview. Years have passed, Kelly has matured her way of making films, but she has not changed her worldview. As a director, I would classify Kelly Reichardt as a figure similar to Chantal Akerman in terms of filming methods, but in terms of political filmmaking, something like Clint Eastwood. Kelly is the portrait of a modern cinema born from those who once found themselves face-to-face with classic cinema: the children of the golden age.
In the end..
In the end, Kelly transforms that small core into something grand, not within the film itself. The film is niche, with characters that serve the ideology of treating the world's hypocrisy about art—how to turn a theft into something more important than the art itself—which, on the other hand, is a family drama. From a certain point, the script decides to delve into the loneliness of bankruptcy, the decay of a person who had everything to be happy with what he had, but due to ego, decided to give up his family's peace to live through a dangerous sensation of pleasure.
The Mastermind is a work that, superficially, seems empty, just another film about decay. But through an artistically and socially sharp gaze, it has a range of discussions that demonstrate a rich script. A script, when written, has its objective and its composition. The composition is the part that contextualizes decisions, the real support, and consequently, the unconscious of an artist. This is the part that elevates a work, what we can decipher from a look, a tonal inflection in speech. And this is something Kelly does very well, being one of the most important artists today in terms of narrative intelligence and complexity, here with an exceptional satirical comedy!
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