Albert Oehlen and Oliver Hirschbiegel’s depiction of Vincent van Gogh’s mindscape and the nature of his working process align with the continuum of Oehlen’s films that both employ and investigate experimental methods. An unfolding torrent of paradoxes brought about by van Gogh’s aspiration to authenticity build into kind of a multisensorically phenomenological film, which also functions as a painting itself. In the world of Geel, the buzzing of insects is genuinely part of the painting, clothes are genuinely part of the bared man, and a near-obsessive relationship to unlearning reveals the real. Geel (“yellow”) is a film that even the end credits can’t stop.
The film is accompanied by Oehlen & Hirschbiegel’s brand new short film Cézanne on Art, based on the conversations of Paul Cézanne with the art critic Joachim Gasquet. This explosion of dialogue analyzing the boundaries of verbal thought and sensory experience pairs easily with the themes of unlearning in Geel, the ambiguity of colours and blurrily perceived echoes painting a picture of Cézanne as a medium. (Tommi Ilari Mäki)
Language: German, subtitles: English / English, no subtitles
Finnish premieres
In the presence of Albert Oehlen
