Local Color (film)

Cast

Plot summary

John Talia is a teenager who aspires to be a painter, despite the fact that his eponymous father strongly disapproves of his interest in art. Talia manages to meet Nikolai Serov, an elderly Russian ex-patriot impressionist painter, who had been quite successful in the years before the modern art movement threw realism into disrepute.

Serov is bitter and has not painted for years. Gradually Talia attempts to befriend the elderly artist, and despite many rebuffs, finally succeeds. Serov invites the young man to spend the summer with him in his summer house in the countryside. Talia's father is extremely skeptical, and suspicious of the elder man's motives, but the young Talia goes anyway.

During the first weeks, Serov seems to be using Talia primarily as an unpaid laborer to fix up his house, however it becomes clear that the Russian is sharing with the young man many nuggets of wisdom about life and art. Eventually Serov shows him many things about how to paint, and how to capture a shared experience.

When Talia comes home at the end of the summer, unknown to the young man, Serov goes to Talia's house first, and manages to win over the young man's highly skeptical father.

Some years later, when Serov dies, he leaves many of his paintings to the young man, who happily remembers seeing Serov finally painting again.