La langue rouge

Belgian artist Walter Swennen invites us into his workshop for a thoughtful but playful dialogue between the movements of his mind and the matter of his works, between a way of being and a way of painting. Moving from Brussels to New York, accompanied by director Violaine de Villers and a team of curators, Swennen speaks to his paintings, and they speak back. We are drawn into this painter-philosopher’s wacky world, in which Buster Keaton bumps into Titian, Krazy Cat rides a Dadaesque hobbyhorse, Mickey Mouse puts ears on Mallarmé, and Boris Vian jams with Thelonious Monk. Swennen is a master at not taking himself too seriously, which this film reveals with impish clarity.