Mondria(a)n, en Route to New York (2026)

Name: Mondria(a)n, en Route to New York
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2026-01-29T21:11:48+01:00
Rating: 2.5

Documentary | 72 minutes

2,50 2 votes

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1 comment

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 72 minuten

Country: Netherlands

Directed by: Pim Zwier

Stars: Peter Bolhuis

This movie is not available on US streaming services.

Mondria(a)n, en Route to New York plot

While Piet Mondrian contemplates and reconsiders his compositions, in which the thickness of a line has a decisive impact on the entire painting, the Second World War casts its shadow before him. Despite Mondrian's awareness of the impending danger, he hesitates and postpones his departure for New York to continue working on his paintings. Only when the ground becomes too hot for him does he impulsively depart. After arriving in New York, the once so characteristic black lines and planes of primary colors disappear from his paintings, making way for the rhythm of his new surroundings.

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Mr_Marty

123 messages
108 votes

29 January at 21:11

In my opinion there just wasn't enough material here to make a documentary.

It's based on the letters Mondrian wrote, first from Paris and later from London, to his American friend Harry Holtzman. They're typical letters you'd write to a distant friend: friendly and not impersonal, but not particularly in-depth about Mondrian's artistic vision or process, or offering insight into his innermost thoughts. They're written in a specific kind of Dutch-English, with a rich vocabulary but also very Dutch syntax.

Moreover, there don't seem to have been many, and there seems to be no footage of Mondrian's London life at all. So, you're constantly presented with a voiceover reading a section of a letter, accompanied by archive footage that can still be somewhat linked to the letter. To stretch the time, the archive footage continues for quite a while after the letter excerpt ends. And even then, the whole thing is only 72 minutes long.

(Seen at Eye Film Museum)