La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

Upon meeting painter David Bursztein and his girlfriend Emmanuelle Béart, blocked fellow artist Michel Piccoli finds his creative spark renewed with a desire to use Béart as the model for a painting he was unable to finish long ago. A thorough reflection on the artistic process, it is four hours long and tedious. Full minutes go by where the only sound that is heard are scratches made on a sketch pad. In the end both the artist and his subject are broken and reborn in ways, but every grueling moment of that is felt by the viewer.