It's 2012 Paris. Cat burglar Mimi steals Cleopatra's fan. The original target is the Regent Diamond but she gets distracted by the fan. Her employer is not happy. She contacts famed art therapist Ruben Brandt who is treating a group of troubled criminals. She recruits the group to steal with her. Meanwhile, Ruben is being haunted by art-based nightmares. He asks Mimi to steal the 13 art works that are haunting him.

The animation style is modern art. I'm sure more sophisticated eyes would recognize the style and name the influences. The art works being shown are beyond my education. It doesn't diminish my admiration. It's compelling. I do wish the story has more energy to it. I would have concentrated on one art work and make this more a caper movie. The different skills of the group suggest that is in play but it doesn't make it a priority. I really like the style and I would like more from the story.

So what would an animated film put together by Picasso, Dali, Cubists, the Dadaists & lovers of classic rock, r&b music (note: music to fit scenes); art, and film look like your ask? OK, you probably wouldn't. Tucked away in this film is all the above so be prepared to rewind to capture an overload of those fast moving glimpses. Plot: A psychoanalyst, Ruben Brandt (name is a combo of famous artists) enlists the help of some patients to steal 13 famous paintings that have haunted his nightmares ever since his father subliminally placed their images in his young growing brain. Scenes: The Tale of Little Red Riding Hood was hypnotizing; Disney's The Little Mermaid (Sea Witch); Pacific 231(PCFC 231) a classic steam locomotive & music. Paintings: Edward Hopper (Nighthawks); Botticelli (Venus); Velazquez; Magritte; Picasso; Gauguin; Manet (Olympia); Bazille (Portrait of Renoir); Duveneck (The Whistling Boy); Warhol (Double Elvis).

It is obvious that director Milorad Krstic likes to pay extra attention to details, loves animating the underside of cars, locomotives, and motorcycles, and has a weird penchant for absurdity for his Ruben Brandt, Collector would not have been a mixture of all these things and some more. Narrating the ingenious story of a loner psychotherapist who involuntarily hires a group of four criminals to steal popular paintings from around the world so that he can finally stop having those ugly nightmares that ARE about those paintings, director Krstic starts his animated drama with bang, bang, and nothing but bang. It starts at something and frequently digresses to a frame or a character that has absolutely no relation to the main plot, and that is exactly how the film pulls you in. With beautiful, beautiful things to look at and pop culture references about everything from Radiohead's "Creep" to Francis Ford Coppola's gangster epic The Godfather (1972) to Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks, Rubern Brandt, Collector is a whirlpool of random events, dark comedy, and quotable general moments that you will find yourself so immersed in that you will stop having issues with how the characters look. Absurd, abnormal, and abominable - it is from these three elements that director Krstic churns out this epic adventure of a film, which, despite its overlong and ridiculous story arcs, makes for a great watch, at least from a perspective where it improves your pop culture knowledge by some great extent. It is nothing like you have seen in the animation or non-animation territory before. But don't take your kids along. TN.

(Watched and reviewed at its India premiere at the 20th MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)