Portrait of a blind painter

There is a special bond that is created between a biographer and their subject. Not often is it seen that the biographer becomes integral to the subject's life and less often do we see the biographer insert themselves in a biopic. And of course, the best way to do this is to write fiction.

These are the things that set Me and Kaminski apart. Daniel Kehlman wrote this novel in his late twenties and first published it in 2003. While the book did not receive raving reviews, dotted literary critics did not miss up on the witty humour that Kehlman brought to the scene, writing a fictional biography about a fictional legend.

The 2015 German film, based on the original novel and co-written by Kehlman himself, tells the story of clumsy journalist Sebastian Zöllner (Daniel Brühl), who embarks on a journey to write a book on the legendary Manuel Kaminski (Jesper Christensen). Trained by Matisse, friends with Picasso, Kaminski is a painter who is troubled by his indecisiveness at the beginning of his career.

However much the story is about Kaminski, it is about Zöllner's journey of self-realisation as a writer and a human being. Zöllner, desperate to belt out a bestseller, after separating with his wife, starts researching on Kaminski, a painter hugely publicised for being blind.

And while a lot of the film deals with establishing the legend of Kaminski and how he got his claim to fame by an "American accident", it also looks at what it takes to write a biography of a man about to die. Hoping that Kaminski dies just in time for his book to become a hit, Zöllner reaches the painter's village for the final stage of his research.

The writing is unique in the way it describes Zöllner's desperation to accomplish something and yet not know what it is – with humour, and through conversations with the aging artist. What's more is that Wolfgang Becker manages to stage the film in a way that draws parallels between Zöllner's character and that of Kaminski.

The indecisiveness that Kaminski dealt with at the beginning of his career is clearly reflected in the way Zöllner is clueless about how to become successful.

Moreover, Becker manages to capture the reality of biographing old people in the funniest of ways. The quirks of old people with fading memories, trying to remember details of a relationship they had decades ago is a hilarious jolt to anyone aspiring to become a biographer.

And more importantly, Kehlman's writing also deals with the emotional, ethical, and mental toll faced by biographers. While Zöllner is shamelessly self-serving, time and again he lands in ethical dilemmas.

The camera work is excellent with some truly breathtaking shots. At one point when the camera reveals Kaminski's last set of paintings, it is quite impossible to not feel for the artist who was trying to paint the process of going blind.

But while the specialised edit of merging frames of the movies with Kaminski's paintings is unique, there are some portions of the film where the editing was less than efficient; scenes with too many cuts resulting in somewhat of a mess.

The film however, seems like an endearing note to biographers, while simultaneously telling a beautifully painful story of the desperation of a painter trying to capture the last few moments of sight.