Water Lilies of Monet – The magic of water and light (2018)

Directed by: Giovanni Troilo | 90 minutes | documentary | Actors: Elisa Lasowski

Impressionism and founder Claude Monet are seamlessly connected. In the successful documentary ‘Water Lilies of Monet’ we travel with him along the Seine, Le Havre, Poissy, Giverny to Paris. One of Monet’s most famous works is the immense ‘Le Grand Décoration’, a paneled painting depicting a calm pond full of blooming water lilies. As a viewer, we are guests in his experience and fight against the new generation – led by Picasso and Matisse – to create these masterpieces.

As a novice painter in Paris, the young Claude lived with Renoir and his circle of friends included Paul Cezànne and Edgar Degas. He wanted nothing more than to work with the elements; water, nature and light. This quest for creation, painting technique and personal happiness took him to Normandy, London and via the Netherlands back to France. Wherever he lived, it was always close to a riverbed. Besides light, passion for water was also deep. For example, he preferred to be put in a buoy after his death so that he could endlessly sway on the waves.

Monet’s life can best be described as follows: a love for the changing landscape around him that turned into an obsession to capture the beauty of water, light and sky on a canvas. You’d almost forget that he wanted to end his career due to depression after the death of his great love and second wife Alice and eldest son Jean, but Claude picked himself up which demanded extra from him. Shortly afterwards, he was diagnosed with cataracts in both eyes that nearly made him blind. The tranquility of his own garden in Giverny brought Claude peace and at the same time an enormous dose of inspiration, because there he painted about 250 canvases in oil, including his world-famous lilies and other floral splendor.

That led to the colossal lily ponds that would be on display at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Monet hung his panels – on which he had worked for 12 years – on two impressive oval walls that he designed himself to transport the visitor into his serene and calming world on the waterfront. In 1927 the doors of the museum were opened by his good friend and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. But it turned out not to be a success, because the French people detested the works of art. Monet did not know this, because five months before the opening of the museum, he died of an autoimmune disease at the age of 86.

Nine years earlier, at the time of the First World War, Claude wrote a letter to Georges: “I am about to complete two decorative panels that I want to sign on Victory Day and ask you, by your kind assistance, to to the state to offer… it’s not much, but it’s the only way I participate in the win. […] I admire you and embrace you with all my heart.”

Actress Elisa Lasowski (‘David Bowie: Blackstar’) takes you through Claude’s water garden and talks about the life and process Monet went through with an utterly charming French accent. Like her subject, she lived in France, Algeria and the Netherlands. This beautiful documentary ‘Water Lilies of Monet’ is inspired by the bestseller ‘Madness and Enchantment’, which was published in 2016. Claude Monet and the water lilies’ by Ross King, who was internationally renowned for this. But if you want to be amazed by Monet’s masterpieces with your own eyes, you will have to take a plane to Paris, Nantes, London, Wales, New York, Chicago, Portland, Cleveland and Kansas City, because there are many of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (lilies in French) still in full bloom.