Chasing Portraits is small and subtle, with some missed opportunities and occasionally inexpert filmmaking. But it’s not an insignificant effort, and Ms. Rynecki’s cause is admirable.
Too often coming across as an elaborate home movie, the doc would have benefited from its story being told by a more experienced filmmaker who was less emotionally involved in the proceedings.
It’s a heavy lift that, to do her efforts justice, required a more dimensional, broadly contextual and, for a movie about art, visually adept depiction than first-time filmmaker Rynecki has managed.