For the Time Being

Colour, 35mm
The Netherlands, 2002, 9 min
Section: Johan van der Keuken

Synopsis

In his last completed film, The Long Holiday, Johan Van der Keuken stated that, for him, making films was a way of life. Until the very last moment he worked on a film which was to have been his final testament. Death interrupted his last work, a film treating the theme of love. The director was freely inspired by the Bible’s Song of Songs. Only part of the work remained behind in the editing room, a series of Van Keuken’s conversations with friends and film colleagues. While this is only a nine-minute fragment composed of an accelerated assemblage of faces, gestures and words which gradually begins to construct itself into a testimony, we can still gather from it the kind of themes the director chose to focus on right up until the end. According to the commentary, Johan van der Keuken passed away one sunny day in January.