Japan's Takeshi Kitano brings 'cruel art' to Venice

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

VENICE, Italy (AFP) — Japan's Takeshi Kitano on Thursday completed his trilogy on the creative process as he unveiled his "Achilles and the Tortoise" at the Venice film festival.

Driving headlong towards a validation of art for art's sake, the new film traces a man's lifelong quest to win recognition as a painter.

"This is a story about cruel art," Kitano said. The obsession begins when the artist, Machisu, is a small boy, the precocious son of a wealthy collector, who spends nearly every waking hour drawing or painting.

Real life intrudes with crushing tragedies, but he perseveres, encouraged by a doting wife who eggs him on in ever more reckless artistic adventures, even nearly drowning him to sharpen his senses.

"It's not necessary for an artist...