It is an ongoing mystery why so many artists’ biopics, though undoubtedly coming from a place of deep admiration, choose to ignore the very thing that makes their subjects extraordinary — their art — in favor of outlining the less extraordinary (however torrid) circumstances of their private lives and loves. The latest example: the attractive but slight directorial debut of French actress Céline Sallette (“House of Tolerance,” “Rust and Bone”). Her feature “ Niki ” is a portrait of pioneering French-American painter, sculptor and illustrator Niki de Saint Phalle, in which the closest we ever get to any of her actual pieces is seeing the back of a canvas or two, as Niki ( Charlotte Le Bon ), bespeckled with paint splatter that highlights her delicate elf-princess beauty, frowns at her efforts in dissatisfaction.
What exactly is she looking at? Unless you’re already intimately acquainted with every phase of her multivalent career and can navigate the film’s rather haphazard chronology, there is no way to know. De Saint Phalle was indeed a very beautiful woman who, as the movie begins in the early 1950s, is modeling for a magazine fashion shoot — an early showcase for Marion Moulès and Matthieu Camblor’s consistently covetable costume design. Mute, pliable and immaculately made up, with a tiara glistening in her hair, Niki has her photo taken just before a bulb blows and the studio is plunged into darkness.
“What’s her name again?” mutters the.
