The Adventures of Picasso

The film opens with Pablo Picasso's birth in Málaga. His father, Don Jose, is an artist who quickly recognizes his son's talent when Pablo sculpts a figure of him from food. This moment sets the tone for Picasso's lifelong quest to express art.

As a boy, his father takes him toward Madrid to study art. On the road they encounter two robbers who threaten a beautiful girl named Dolores. After Picasso's slapstick defeat, Dolores gives him a bottle of paint containing a djinn, and he uses the paint to sign all his paintings.

At the Madrid art academy, Picasso's talent is praised and rewarded. He returns home with a portrait of his mother Dona Maria, which earns praise there as well. At the funeral, it appears Don Jose has died, but he is revealed to be alive, and Dona Maria rebukes him harshly.

Picasso travels to Paris where he struggles to sell his paintings. His father visits with the news that Dona Maria is dead. During this visit, Don Jose starts to eat an apple that Picasso used as a reference, and Picasso begins to draw faster, using the apple as reference; this process helps usher in the birth of cubism.

At a Paris vernissage, Picasso lowers the painting down from a window using a fishing rod after the crowd reacts with surprise and disbelief. The painting garners praise from one guest who buys it; the great writer Gertrude Stein acquires the work, marking Picasso's entry into the Paris art world.

An American magnate, Ingrid Svensson-Guggenheim, arrives in Paris determined to become part of Picasso's art world. She buys into the aura of his genius, lingering for influence and prestige. Her arrival stirs tension as new patrons jockey for position around Picasso.

Rousseau hosts a grand masquerade in his honor, with guests dressed as furniture and famous historical figures. The festivities reach a surreal peak as Rousseau plays the violin and then flies out the window into the Paris night.

The year 1914 frees a hopeful mood of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but the onset of World War I shatters that dream. The city and continent brace for upheaval as headlines announce the coming conflict.

In 1918, after the war, Picasso reunites with his father, who has invented a shampoo that claims to regrow hair. The invention leaves Picasso without hair, giving him his distinctive bald look.

Back in Europe, Picasso works on sets and costumes for a Russian ballet, with its London premiere failing to impress audiences. Don Jose handles the dancers' food, and misunderstandings lead to a comical cascade of flatulence among the performers.

In Paris, Picasso becomes enchanted by Sirkka, a Finnish singer whose repertoire includes a recipe for kalakukko. When he discovers the song is all she has, he becomes restless and travels to New York City with his father.

In America there is a prohibition on art, and Picasso works underground while delivering a set of works to Mrs X, revealed to be Ingrid Svensson-Guggenheim. A shootout between gangsters Big Mac Kahnweiler and Mr. Peperoni erupts, interrupted by a police raid and a foulmouthed cop who accuses Picasso of murder. An impromptu trial, with Ingrid and the gangs as jurors, convicts Picasso as art being a lethal poison.

The electric chair fails to work, and an enterprising Norwegian electrician named Grieg is called to fix it. The device misfires, and Picasso escapes by drawing a door on the wall and slipping back into Europe.

Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco rise to power across Europe. Don Jose joins the German army and is promoted to a SS role as Hauptbahnhof, in charge of Operation Ostrich to hunt down opposition.

Picasso settles on the Riviera with Dolores and her granddaughter, and his home becomes a living museum while he still lives there. After drinking the ink from a magic bottle, he dies and the signatures on his paintings disappear, triggering the Great Picasso crash. In a final twist, Picasso is not really dead; he rises, waves to his paintings, and fades into the wall.