Vincent Van Gogh - Der Weg nach Courrières

This is a film about the little known early days of Vincent van Gogh, his voyage to Courrières and from a lay preacher to a painter. This is not one of the typical filmic biographies about the sensations of one’s life, there is no cutting off an ear and no suicide in Auvers. It concentrates on three episodes of van Gogh’s early life, based on original letters that he wrote to his brother Theo. We are taken on a journey through the present landscapes and villages where Vincent once sojourned, thus creating a dialog between past and present. These are images of unspectacular daily life in unspectacular places that recall the painter’s own modern realism. Letters from Vincent in which he describes his anguish about being despised as idle, form a current commentary to images of a dull café where the unemployed mark their time surrounded by the ambient sordidness. This is a thoughtful film that takes its time to investigate the unknown beginnings of a well-known painter. (DOK.fest München)