Rainer M. Trinkler
Switzerland | 2016 | 72 min
World premiere
Language : Swiss German
Subtitles : English, French
Marcel Schaffner was a Swiss painter born in Basel in 1931 and influenced by the post-war American movements, particularly abstract expressionism and Color Field. In this documentary portrait made during the final years of his life (he died in Zurich in 2012), the camera accompanies him at work, at home, when he goes to buy paint or during one of his annual trips to Spain. Little by little, in a series of fragmented sequences, his speech, his metaphysical considerations and his conception of art give a precise sense to his approach, unveiling the sensational strength of his paintings.
With a disarming simplicity and decency, Marcel Schaffner – Dialog mit der Stille succeeds in lifting the veil, at least a little, on the painter’s inner world. Here, film finds, by its own means, a common language with painting, in order to come and magnify the gesture of creation.
Mourad Moussa
